SAN DIEGO : Guilty Plea Gets Murderer 30 to Life

A man who pleaded guilty to murder in order to avoid the gas chamber was sentenced Friday to 30 years to life.

Willie Ray Roberts Jr., 37, pleaded guilty April 17--four days before Robert Alton Harris was put to death--to murdering 17-year-old Melissa Orchulli of El Cajon.

Orchulli was killed while she was walking to summer school on July 12, 1988. She was slain in a vacant house on Euclid Avenue in East San Diego.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Gary R. Rempel called Roberts a “sociopath.”

In papers filed with the court, Rempel said that Roberts tried to lure another girl to a secluded spot just hours after Orchulli was brutally murdered.

As part of his plea bargain, Roberts gave up any right to appeal.

Superior Court Judge Norbert Ehrenfreund sentenced Roberts to 25 years to life for the murder. He was also ordered to serve four years in prison for being an ex-convict who committed assault with a deadly weapon.

A third conviction on a misdemeanor charge of soliciting a lewd act brought Roberts a sentence of one year in County Jail.

Although the minimum sentence is 30 years, Roberts received credit for time in custody since the murder.