Woman Found Guilty of Killing Girl, 9 : Murder: She stabbed the victim, a witness in a drug-related home robbery, 57 times. She could face the death penalty.

A jury took less than four hours Monday to convict an Anaheim woman of fatally stabbing a 9-year-old girl--the only witness to a drug-related home robbery.

Maria del Rosio Alfaro, 20, stabbed Autumn Wallace 57 times in the bathroom of her Anaheim house on June 15, 1990. The girl was at home after school, waiting for her mother to return from work, when she opened the door for Alfaro, who knew her older sister.

The jury convicted Alfaro of first-degree murder with two special circumstances--commission of the crime in the course of a burglary and in the course of a robbery. Either of the special circumstances can bring the death penalty. Alfaro was also found guilty separately of burglary, robbery and using a knife during the other crimes.

As the jurors filed into the courtroom to announce their verdicts, one said, “This is the hard part.”

Alfaro began dabbing her eyes even before hearing the verdicts. She stood, holding the hand of her attorney, as the murder verdict was read.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles J. Middleton told Superior Court Judge Theodore E. Millard that he would call no witnesses during the penalty phase. Instead, he said, he would introduce a school photo of Autumn and address the jury.

Defense attorney William M. Monroe said that because of “the viciousness, the heinousness of the crime,” the task of saving Alfaro from the gas chamber is monumental.

During the penalty phase, the jury will recommend to the judge a death sentence or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Much of the prosecution’s case was built around a 4 1/2-hour, videotaped interrogation of Alfaro by two sheriff’s investigators two weeks after the killing.

Alfaro, sobbing throughout the tape, said that on the day of the killing she was “wired” on cocaine and heroin. With two male friends and her infant son, she drove to the Wallace home to rob it, knowing that Autumn would be alone, she said.

At the house, Autumn recognized Alfaro as a friend of her older sister, April Wallace, and let Alfaro in to use the bathroom. On her way through the house, Alfaro said, she grabbed a knife from a kitchen drawer, and after thinking about what to do for a few moments while in the bathroom, called to Autumn to help her clean her eyelash curlers. “That’s when I did it,” Alfaro told the investigators. “I stabbed her . . . ‘cause she knew who I was.”

The girl did not resist and made no sound when she was attacked, Alfaro said, and no one else participated in the stabbing.

Alfaro said the stolen goods from the house, including a portable television, a video recorder, clothes and Autumn’s typewriter, were sold for about $250.

The prosecution also introduced 109 items of physical evidence, including Alfaro’s fingerprint taken from the house, her footprint in blood on the floor of the bathroom, and her blood-stained shoes.

Autumn’s mother, Linda Wallace, flanked by two surviving daughters, said the jurors “did a great job . . . and they made the right decision. I’m just glad it’s half over with, and looking forward to the end of this. I want to see her get the death penalty. That’s what she deserves for what she did. . . .

“If she gets life in prison, I’ll accept that. . . . It’s been a long two years, and it’s a great relief to have it half over with.”

Middleton said the verdict was “not unexpected, because the evidence is so overwhelming regarding the guilt.”

Monroe called no witnesses in Alfaro’s defense, but argued that the murder was committed by one of the two men who went with her to rob the home. “Rosie Alfaro may have stabbed little Autumn Wallace, but she did not kill her,” Monroe told the jury.