SANTA ANA : Death Penalty Sought in Rape-Murder Case

The Orange County district attorney has decided to seek the death penalty against Edward Patrick Morgan Jr., who is accused of sexually assaulting and murdering a 23-year-old Huntington Beach woman.

The decision was made because of the brutality of the crime and because of Morgan’s felony record, Assistant Dist. Atty. John Conley said Wednesday.

Morgan, 28, was arrested in May in a small Northern California town where he had fled to elude an intensive weeklong manhunt, police said. The hunt was launched after the body of Leanora Annette Wong was found in the rear of a parking lot near an Orange nightclub.

Prosecutors say Wong had been raped with a foreign object and suffered severe upper body and pelvic injuries.

Morgan’s defense attorney, Julian Bailey, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Authorities allege that Morgan was linked to the crime by fingerprints, witnesses who saw him with Wong--whom he had met at the nightclub--and other evidence, including videotape from a security camera mounted on a nearby building.

The case struck a nerve with many who believe the legal system repeatedly failed to protect society against Morgan, who has been accused of raping four young Orange County women in the past decade.

In all but one of the previous cases, the district attorney’s office either declined to prosecute or allowed Morgan to plead guilty to less serious charges. Prosecutors say the credibility of the victims posed a problem in those cases.

In the most recent case, prosecutors allowed Morgan to be sent back to prison for one year for parole violation instead of seeking a rape conviction that could have sent him to prison for nearly a decade. Morgan had been released after serving his time on the parole violation when Wong was slain.