Suspect in Serial Slaying Case Ordered Held Without Bail

The former Camp Pendleton Marine who confessed to slaying eight women in Southern California and Illinois 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 as his parents, two sisters and a brother sat nearby. While his brother kept a diary of the 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.

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

During questioning, Urdiales admitted to those killings and claimed responsibility for as many as six others, including the 1986 stabbing of 23-year-old Robbin Brandley at 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.

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

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard King said Monday that his office has not yet received the case.

At the moment, the focus is Chicago, where investigators say Urdiales shocked them 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 in Orange County.

“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 Police 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 described McGhee’s shoes, down to the brand.

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

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 contributed to this story.