Alcala Sentenced Again to Death for Killing 12-Year-Old

Rodney James Alcala was sentenced for the second time Wednesday to die in the gas chamber for the 1979 murder of a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl, a crime described by Orange County Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin as “vicious and malevolent in every sense of the word.”

McCartin scoffed at protests from Alcala--whose first conviction was overturned two years ago--that he did not murder Robin Samsoe. Her body was found in the foothills of Angeles National Forest on July 2, 1979, 12 days after she was last seen alive on a bicycle near the Huntington Beach Pier.

“Hogwash,” McCartin said. “He’s as guilty as anybody who has ever come through this department.”

McCartin, known for his soft-spoken, low-keyed demeanor, let his voice rise slightly at times as he spoke about Alcala, who has a long history of sexually abusing and assaulting young girls.

Robin’s mother, Maryann Frazier, was tearful and shaking when she told family members after the sentencing, “It’s finally over. Let’s go home.”

Alcala, 41, a part-time photographer from Monterey Park, will return to San Quentin’s Death Row.

He was convicted and sentenced to die for the Samsoe slaying in 1980. But two years ago he won a new trial when the California Supreme Court ruled that the jury should never have been told about his criminal past during the guilt phase of his first trial.

He was convicted for the second time in May, and on June 20 the jury returned another death verdict.

Alcala’s attorneys filed a 45-page motion seeking a new trial, but McCartin denied the request Wednesday.

The judge then reviewed Alcala’s history of violence against young girls, dating back to 1968. The Samsoe murder was heinous enough, the judge said, but Alcala’s past made a death verdict even more justified.

In 1968, Alcala attacked an 8-year-old girl he had picked up as she walked to school. Authorities believe the girl, who had been raped, would have died from a brutal beating Alcala gave her with a pipe if police had not broken down a door to save her.

Alcala was sent to prison for that attack and later was returned to prison for an attack on a 14-year-old girl. He was on parole when he attacked and raped a 15-year-old girl in 1978, just four months before the Samsoe slaying. He was out on bail facing trial for that attack when Robin Samsoe disappeared.

Two months ago, during the penalty phase of his second trial, Alcala admitted his past crimes but claimed he had reformed.

McCartin said it was clear from Alcala’s past that “nothing has made an impression on Mr. Alcala.”

Before McCartin finished his sentencing statement, Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Goethals told him the victim’s mother had asked to speak to the court.

But McCartin said he “respectfully” would deny the request.

“There has already been enough emotion. . . . I think everybody has had enough of this particular case,” the judge said.

He added that he was denying the request partly out of respect for Anna Maria German, Alcala’s mother, who was in the courtroom.

“About the only compassion I could come up with for the defense was when I looked out my window this morning and saw Mrs. Alcala walking to court,” the judge said.

Alcala’s mother, fighting tears, left the courtroom quietly after the hearing without speaking to anyone.

Beverly Wilson of Tustin, a juror in Alcala’s second trial who was in court for the sentencing, said later that she appreciated the judge’s comments about Alcala’s mother.

In the penalty phase of the trial, Alcala’s mother testified in tears that she still believed him innocent and that he had always been a good son.

“Our hearts went out to that wonderful woman,” Wilson said. “She was really the one who made our decision an extremely difficult one.”

The second jury did not learn about Alcala’s past until the penalty phase. Prosecutors at the first trial, however, had brought up the three previous attacks in an effort to convince the jurors that there were similarities between those attacks to what happened to Robin.

Forestry Worker’s Testimony

The state Supreme Court ruled that the similarities were few and that using Alcala’s history was “highly prejudicial.”

Goethals, the prosecutor assigned to the second trial, had to rely heavily on the testimony of Danna Crappa, a forestry worker. Crappa said that on the day Robin disappeared, she had seen a girl about the same age with a man who fit Alcala’s general description in the area where the body later was found. Crappa had given police a description of the car she saw there, and it matched Alcala’s almost perfectly.

Other witnesses then identified Alcala as the man who approached Robin and a friend to take pictures of them on the beach the day she disappeared.

Crappa, who has been emotionally distressed about what happened, testified at the first trial but claimed amnesia at the second trial. The judge permitted Goethals to present Crappa’s previous testimony to the jury.

That was just one issue that Alcala’s attorneys consider grounds for another possible Supreme Court reversal.

Goethals said later that he feared a reversal of the death sentence by the state Supreme Court “simply because it reverses all death penalty cases. But it was a good clean trial, and it should hold up under any objective review.”