Repeat Killer Gets Death Sentence

A man who raped, mutilated and strangled a Los Alamitos woman 12 years ago, and was caught only after police in Hawaii linked him to a similar case there, has been sentenced to death.

Robert Mark Edwards, 36, of Long Beach was sentenced Wednesday in Superior Court for killing Marjorie E. Deeble, the 55-year-old mother of his former girlfriend. He was convicted in 1996, but the jury at that time deadlocked 9 to 3 in favor of execution.

A new trial to determine his sentence was begun in March, and upon the jury’s unanimous recommendation, Judge John J. Ryan sentenced Edwards to death.

Deeble’s body was found secured to a dresser with her belt around her neck. She had been tortured, beaten, strangled and sexually mutilated.

Edwards was questioned but not charged in Deeble’s death until investigators heard about a January 1993 murder in Hawaii. A neighbor of Edwards, who by then had moved to Maui, was killed in the same way as Deeble.

Edwards was convicted and sentenced to five life terms for that murder after detectives found his bloody handprints and footprints at the crime scene.

In the Orange County case, Deputy Public Defender Tim Severin asked jurors to impose only a life sentence, and take into account Edwards’ attempts to counsel his 13-year-old son, his emotional and physical abuse by his alcoholic father and Edwards’ own addiction, which Severin said led to his committing the crimes during alcoholic blackouts.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. David L. Brent asked jurors to impose a death sentence based on Edwards’ depravity in committing the crimes and the degradation he imposed on his victims.