Former Marine Who Confessed to Eight Slayings Is Arraigned

The former Camp Pendleton Marine who confessed to slaying eight women in Southern California and Illinois, including a Laguna Beach woman, was ordered held without bail Monday and placed on a round-the-clock suicide watch.

Handcuffed and shackled at the legs, Andrew Urdiales, 32, appeared in a Chicago courtroom for his arraignment shortly after noon, as his parents, two sisters and a brother sat nearby. While his brother kept a diary of the day’s proceedings, one of his sisters prayed with rosary beads, and his father consoled his mother.

Judge William Maki arraigned Urdiales on two counts of murder and two counts of aggravated assault, then returned him to Cook County Jail without bond and placed him on a 24-hour suicide watch at the request of his attorney, Public Defender Mary Lambert.

Moments before, Lambert spoke to Urdiales’ relatives, telling them that jail authorities needed “to keep a better eye on him” for his own sake and to protect him from others. She warned them repeatedly not to discuss the case with reporters.

Bailiffs then removed a man from the courtroom who claimed to be Urdiales’ uncle. When reporters approached him, he appeared shaky and incoherent and then ran. Relatives of at least one victim also left the courthouse with coats covering their faces and declined to speak to the media.

Maki set May 13 as the date for the next hearing.

Urdiales, who served at Camp Pendleton and Twentynine Palms from 1984 to 1991, was arrested April 23 and charged with the murders of two Chicago-area prostitutes, police said last week.

During questioning, Urdiales admitted to those killings and claimed responsibility for as many as six others, including the January 1986 stabbing of 23-year-old Robbin Brandley of Laguna Beach in a dimly lit parking lot on the campus of Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, police said.

In Orange County, sheriff’s deputies said a homicide task force is reviewing files on Brandley’s slaying to prepare for a trial in Southern California.

Lt. Ron Wilkerson, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, said Monday that Urdiales almost certainly will be tried first in Chicago, but afterward, “it’s entirely possible” he could be extradited and tried in Orange County.

“We certainly want him to be held accountable for the crime committed here,” Wilkerson said, echoing Sheriff Brad Gates, who last week vowed to bring Urdiales to Orange County to stand trial.

However, Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard King said his office has not yet received the case from investigators.

“There’s so many jurisdictions involved at this point,” King said. “The answer is, I just don’t know.”

At the moment, the focus is Chicago, where Urdiales shocked investigators earlier this month with his emotionless descriptions of the deaths of eight women, three in the Chicago area, three in or near Palm Springs, one in San Diego and Brandley.

A tape of that confession was played last week for investigators in the Cathedral City Police Department.

“I wish I could take the tape and let the reporters listen to a man so calmly, coldly and accurately discuss multiple homicides,” Cathedral City Lt. Ray Griffith said. “If it doesn’t send a chill down your spine, nothing will.”

Griffith revealed Monday that the name of a third, previously unidentified victim in his area was Julie McGhee,38, whose body was found in Cathedral City in 1988. Griffith said Urdiales was able to describe McGhee’s shoes, even down to the brand.

Police say Urdiales also has confessed to the 1989 slaying of Tammy Lynn Erwin, 18, a transient whose bullet-riddled body was found in a vacant lot in Palm Springs, and the 1995 killing of Denise Maney, 32, of Cathedral City.

He is also suspected of killing San Diego prostitute Mary Ann Wells, 31, on Sept. 25, 1988. An autopsy report says Wells, an intravenous drug user, was killed by a single gunshot to the head. Her body was found in an alley in a commercial area of San Diego.

In Chicago, Urdiales confessed to killing Laura Uylaki, 25, of Hammond, Ind., last July, and Lynn Huber, 22, of Chicago, last August. Both victims were found nude, floating in Lake Wolf, and were believed to be prostitutes who worked in Hammond, a low-income suburb of Gary, Ind., police said.

Investigators have identified the body of the third Chicago-area victim as Cassandra Corum, 21, of Hammond, who was found July 14 in the Vermilion River about 90 miles south of Chicago.

Granberry reported from Orange County and Beckham from Chicago. Times staff writer Tony Perry in San Diego and Times correspondent Diana Marcum in Palm Springs also contributed to this report.