Murder Trial Opens With Defense Gambit

Alleged serial killer Glen Edward Rogers may be a convicted murderer in Florida but he is not guilty of killing a San Fernando Valley woman he met in a Van Nuys bar, his defense attorney said Wednesday.

In a dramatic gambit at the start of Rogers’ murder trial, his lawyer told jurors he would prove that another man--not Rogers--killed Sandra Gallagher in Van Nuys in 1995.

But prosecutors told jurors that Gallagher’s case was no mystery: Rogers was the man who strangled the single mother of three children and then burned her body before going on a cross-country killing rampage.

“This was not a random killing. This was not an isolated incident,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick Dixon. “This was part of a pattern.”

Rogers’ trial begins with one judgment already in hand. In 1997, he was sentenced to be executed in Florida for fatally stabbing Tina Marie Cribbs and leaving her body in a Tampa hotel room bathtub. Rogers has appealed the verdict.

California prosecutors extradited Rogers and are seeking the death penalty for Gallagher’s killing.

On Sept. 28, 1995, Gallagher, a slightly built woman, was celebrating at McRed’s bar after winning $1,200 in the California Lottery.

She met Rogers, described as a charming but volatile man with rock star hair and a wad of $100 bills. They ended up talking and dancing, according to one witness.

“It seemed innocent,” said Michael Flynn, Rogers’ former roommate, who testified Wednesday. Flynn, 33, said he had gone to the bar to celebrate his birthday with Rogers.

Later, Flynn testified, he saw Rogers drive away with Gallagher. The woman’s badly charred remains were found in her burning truck on Victory Boulevard, not far from Rogers’ apartment.

Prosecutors contend that Rogers killed Gallagher, then fled the state, first to Louisiana, then to Tampa, where he killed Cribbs. He later returned to Louisiana, where authorities allege that he killed another woman, although he has not been charged in that crime.

Rogers was arrested after a high-speed chase on a Kentucky highway, not far from where the body of his elderly roommate was found in a cabin once owned by Rogers’ family. Authorities allege that he is also connected to that death.

Jim Coady, Rogers’ public defender, told Los Angeles County Superior Court jurors Wednesday that the man who really killed Gallagher was Istvan Kele, a convicted killer who was allegedly conspiring in a check fraud scheme with Rogers at the time of Gallagher’s murder.

Kele was convicted of shooting an elderly maintenance man six times in the head in a 1972 bank robbery and sentenced to life in federal prison. He was paroled, but then was returned to prison for violating his parole in connection with Gallagher’s death.

Coady said prosecutors were planning to have Kele testify that he helped Rogers dispose of Gallagher’s body. Coady said Kele backed out after prosecutors were unable to arrange a reduction in his parole violation sentence.

The district attorney’s office declined to elaborate.

Coady said he plans to show that Kele killed Gallagher, rather than simply helping Rogers in the crime. Coady said he will call Kele to testify. “He’ll play a fairly big role in this trial,” Coady said. “The evidence will show that Mr. Rogers is not guilty of murder.”

Rogers’ brother, a Palm Springs real estate agent and restaurateur, vowed to prove his brother’s innocence. Claude Rogers attended the opening part of Wednesday’s trial.

“I’m here mostly to give my brother moral support,” said Claude Rogers, 49. “It’s not like your brother is tried for murder every day.”