Jury Urges Death for Killer of Young Pacific Beach Woman

After deliberating a convicted killer’s fate for six hours, a jury recommended Tuesday that he be sentenced to death.

The San Diego Superior Court jury rejected a punishment of life in prison without parole, the only other possible sentence for Dean Carter, during the penalty phase of his murder trial.

The same jury last month convicted Carter, 36, a former TV news cameraman in Alaska, of first-degree murder in the April 14, 1984, strangulation of Janette Cullins, 24, of Pacific Beach.

Carter is under another sentence of death for the murders of three young women in the Los Angeles area, also in April, 1984.

In the San Diego case, the jury made a finding of special circumstances in that Carter committed murder during a burglary and robbery and while lying in wait in Cullins’ apartment.

Carter was recorded by a bank’s video camera using Cullins’ automatic teller card to withdraw money from her account the night she was killed.

Judge Melinda Lasater scheduled sentencing for July 17. She can overturn the death recommendation and impose a life sentence.

Carter is also charged with murdering a woman in Oakland in 1984, but has not come to trial in that case.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Eichler said the jury did not know Carter had already been sentenced to death in the Los Angeles murders.

He was also convicted of raping a San Diego woman in March, 1984, and is serving a 56-year prison term for raping and robbing a Ventura woman that same year.