Jury in Van Nuys Slaying Can Hear Details of Other Deaths

In a key ruling, the judge who will preside over the capital murder trial of suspected serial killer Glen Rogers in a Van Nuys slaying agreed Thursday to allow the jury to hear details of two of the three out-of-state killings he allegedly committed.

Now prosecutors will be able to portray Rogers to the jury as a serial killer whose hatred for women led him to pick up Sandra Gallagher at a Van Nuys bar with the intention of killing her, just as he allegedly did with other women later.

The issue of intent is vital, because in order to secure a sentence of death, the district attorney’s office must show that the slaying was premeditated and is covered by the special circumstance provisions.

Rogers has already been condemned to die in Florida, where he was convicted of fatally stabbing a hotel maid who offered him a ride.

“I think this trial is about whether it’s a first-degree murder,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick Dixon said in court Thursday. “The defendant’s actions over a very short period of time show this was a premeditated murder. It was a plan to seek out and kill women.”

Rogers’ lawyer, Deputy Public Defender James Coady, had argued that the manner of death and cover-up efforts in the killings differed. He also said that Rogers’ alleged statements to a friend--that he killed Gallagher after an argument--show the crime was not planned.

“What you’re really telling the jury is that the person before you is a serial killer who kills women,” Coady said.

He said he intends to reopen the issue before trial and pointed out that evidence of other slayings was kept from jurors in Rogers’ murder trial in Florida.

Rogers is suspected of killing four women in as many states over six weeks, beginning with Gallagher, 33, whom he picked up at McRed’s lounge in Van Nuys in September 1995. Dixon said Rogers strangled her, stuffed her body in her pickup truck and set it afire.

About a month later, he allegedly fatally stabbed 34-year-old Linda Pierce, whom he had been living with in Jackson, Miss. He left town within days.

On Nov. 6, 1995, Tina Cribbs was found slain in his Tampa, Fla., hotel room. She had given Rogers a ride the night before after meeting him at a bar, Dixon said. It is this case, the only slaying for which Rogers has been tried, for which he is sentenced to die.

Three days after Cribbs’ body was found, Andy Lou Jiles was stabbed to death in her Bossier City, La., apartment. Authorities say Rogers met her in a bar too and again asked for a ride.

Rogers was arrested while driving Cribbs’ car in Kentucky after a nationwide hunt, during which he was featured on television’s “America’s Most Wanted.”

Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor ruled that the jury here can hear about the Florida and Louisiana killings because they clearly show a “common plan and intent.” However, she denied Dixon’s motion to introduce the Mississippi slaying--at least until any penalty phase--ruling that it did not fit the pattern.