Deliberations to Continue in Woman’s Slaying Case

After announcing it was deadlocked, a Superior Court jury agreed Monday to continue deliberating whether to recommend the death sentence for an Anaheim woman convicted of killing a 9-year-old girl during a robbery.

Maria del Rosio Alfaro, a 20-year-old mother of four, was found guilty last month of the June, 1990, stabbing death of Autumn Wallace to eliminate the only witness to a home robbery. If sentenced to death, Alfaro would become the first Orange County woman on Death Row, joining two other women now facing the sentence in California.

After about 15 hours of deliberations, jurors notified Superior Court Judge Theodore E. Millard of their impasse.

The jury foreman, who has not been identified, told Millard that there were two holdout jurors in the past several ballots. At the judge’s instruction, the foreman did not disclose which way the jury was leaning.

Millard asked if there was any information he could provide that would enable them to reach a verdict. The foreman then asked if a sentence of life imprisonment without parole meant the defendant really would not be eligible for parole.

After excusing the jury for the day, Millard told lawyers for both sides that he would hear arguments from them this morning about what, if anything, he will tell the jury before they reconvene.

Under the current death penalty statute, a person sentenced to life without parole must serve a minimum of 30 years, attorneys for both sides said during a recess. After that time, the parole board may submit the matter to the governor, who has the power to commute the sentence to a lesser term.

The jurors also asked that a VCR and monitor be brought into the jury room. During the trial, prosecutors played a 4 1/2-hour videotape of a tearful statement Alfaro gave to Anaheim police officers, detailing how she stabbed to death Autumn Wallace. On the tape, Alfaro said she was “wired” on heroin and cocaine when she killed the girl.