Inmate to Stand Trial in Monrovia Girl’s Death
A Missouri prison inmate will stand trial in a 1974 rape and murder of a 15-year-old Monrovia girl whose body was found in Azusa Canyon, the district attorney’s office announced Tuesday.
Louis Burgess, 45, is scheduled for a Dec. 21 extradition to California to be arraigned in Pomona Municipal Court, a district attorney’s spokeswoman said.
Burgess is charged with the March 25, 1974, slaying of Kimberly Miller. He faces an allegation of murder with a special circumstance because prosecutors allege he strangled Miller to death during a rape. However, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen M. Cady said prosecutors will not seek a death sentence for Burgess because California did not have capital punishment at the time the crime was committed.
Cady said Burgess knew Miller through his then-girlfriend. Burgess was subsequently imprisoned for unrelated crimes after the incident.
After he was released from California prison, he moved to Missouri, where he was convicted of assault in 1994 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, Cady said.
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