Death Ordered Again for Alcala

Rodney James Alcala, who got a reprieve from San Quentin’s Death Row a year ago, was given a death sentence for the second time Friday for the slaying of a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl.

The jury’s verdict came seven years to the day after Robin Samsoe disappeared near the Huntington Beach Pier on June 20, 1979. Her body was found 12 days later in the Sierra Madre foothills of Los Angeles County.

Samsoe’s mother, Maryann Frazier, was shaking moments before the jury verdict. When she heard the penalty, she sobbed aloud, “Oh, God,” and fell into the arms of her fiance, Harry Conley. She later hugged jury Foreman Joyce Carey and told her, while wiping away tears, “Thank you. My daughter deserved this.”

Confident About Verdict

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. James Enright was also elated, saying: “This was a good trial. I’m confident this verdict will not be overturned.”

The state Supreme Court last year overturned a 1980 death penalty verdict against Alcala and ordered a new trial. The ground for reversal in the first trial was that evidence about his previous attacks on women had been improperly used as evidence.

Alcala, 41, who had calmly asked the jury Wednesday to spare him the death penalty, saying “I didn’t kill her,” was stone-faced when he heard the verdict.

The jury, which had to choose between the capital penalty or life without parole, deliberated less than 1 1/2 days.

Sentencing Aug. 20

Orange County Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin set formal sentencing for Aug. 20. In California, a judge has the right to reduce a jury’s death verdict to life without parole, but that has never happened in Orange County.

Robin Samsoe was last seen when she borrowed a bicycle from a friend near the Huntington Beach Pier so she could get to a dancing class.