SLOW DEATH: It’s been two years since...

SLOW DEATH: It’s been two years since a death sentence was handed down in Ventura County, but prosecutors are trying to send two more men to the gas chamber: Christopher Sattiewhite, on trial for a 1992 slaying, and Mark Scott Thornton, accused of a killing last year (B1). . . . Neither needs to worry about cyanide pellets dropping into acid any time soon. The county’s longest-serving Death Row inmate--Alejandro Gilbert Ruiz, sentenced in 1980--still has five years worth of appeals, prosecutor Richard Holmes said. . . . Ruiz’s appeal faults a psychiatric report. Since he practiced voodoo, he says, he should have had a voodoo psychiatrist.

WOMEN STYMIED: Although female golfers make up nearly 40% of the nation’s total, some clubs still discriminate (A5). . . . At 73-year-old Saticoy Country Club, rules that prevented women from playing on Wednesdays or Saturdays were eliminated years ago. But traditions persist, said Roma Chandler, former president of the Saticoy Women’s Golf Assn. . . . “The unwritten rule is Tuesday and Friday, women get the first tee-offs, and Wednesday is men’s day. But it’s a lot better than it used to be.”

FAR OUT: As if the Ventura Freeway weren’t scary enough, here’s a new hazard: kidnapers from outer space. Two women driving through Camarillo say they spent a couple of hours on a spaceship being ogled by aliens (Ventura County Life, Page 18). . . . Abduction reports give similar descriptions of the culprits: short, gray, hairless creatures with four-digit hands, dark eyes and tiny mouths.

ROAD SIGN: That new sign for the Thousand Oaks Auto Mall has finally been approved (B5), and the builder says it will be a beaut. . . . “It’s unlike any other auto mall sign you will see anywhere,” said Susan Bailey of Signature Signs. Highlights: foliage-bedecked pillars supporting a 5 1/2-foot-diameter globe, and brass letters hailing the auto mall as the world’s largest. . . . Motorists drive right past the existing sign without noticing, she said. “Next thing they know, they’re at the Oxnard Auto Mall.”