California / IN BRIEF : SANTA ANA : Jury Calls for Death Penalty for Woman

A jury recommended the death penalty for a young mother of four convicted in the brutal stabbing death of a 9-year-old girl during a burglary. Maria (Rosie) del Rosio Alfaro, 20, of Anaheim could become the state’s third woman--and Orange County’s first--under sentence of death when she is sentenced by Superior Court Judge Theodore E. Millard on July 14. No Orange County judge has overturned a jury’s death penalty recommendation since 1977. A Superior Court jury in April convicted Alfaro of first-degree murder during a burglary and robbery in the killing of 9-year-old Autumn Wallace of Anaheim. The girl was stabbed 57 times and left bleeding to death on a bathroom floor.