The Region - News from May 1, 1987

A judge in Santa Barbara sentenced convicted multiple rapist-slayer Richard Allen Benson to death. Benson, 39, was convicted of murder with special circumstances in the 1986 slayings of Laura Camargo and her three children, and the jury subsequently invoked the death penalty. In pronouncing sentence, Superior Court Judge Tom Adams said he could see “no legal reason to overturn the jury’s death penalty.” Investigators said Benson, who had a history of kidnaping and child molestation, first killed Mrs. Camargo and her 23-month-old son at their home in Nipomo and then repeatedly raped her two daughters, aged 3 and 4, before killing them by smashing them on the back of the head. Afterward, he set fire to the Camargo house to conceal evidence.