Glen Rogers Murder Trial Goes to Jury

Attorneys in the Glen Edward Rogers murder trial delivered their closing arguments Thursday, leaving a jury to decide the fate of the alleged cross-country serial killer who has already been convicted in Florida.

The arguments put an end to a rapid-fire trial that finished in just over a week’s time and featured the unusual sight of Rogers, a man on Florida’s death row, taking the stand in his own defense. Rogers is accused of murdering Sandra Gallagher, a 33-year-old mother of three, whom he had met at a San Fernando Valley bar in 1995. Gallagher was found strangled and burned in her pickup truck in Van Nuys.

Rogers’ testimony, in which he denied involvement in the murder, was attacked by Deputy Dist. Atty. Pat Dixon in his closing statement. Dixon chided Rogers for trying to present a “good-guy image” to jurors.

Calling the image a ruse, Dixon characterized Rogers as a cocky blowhard who reveled in picking up women with lies and manipulation even as he disdained them.

The prosecutor portrayed Gallagher, who had won a small amount of money in the lottery just before her death, as a woman whose “momentary good fortune turned to tragic misfortune” when she met Rogers on the night she was murdered.

The district attorney’s office argues that the slaying was premeditated and is seeking the death penalty for Rogers.

Dixon said testimony by a coroner showed that Gallagher died by strangulation. He said that although strangulation may take a relatively short period of time, about a minute, Rogers had plenty of time to reflect on what he was doing. “Neck strangulation,” he said, “was premeditation, in and of itself.”

Deputy Public Defender Jim Coady rebutted the idea that strangulation could be taken to show premeditation. If anything, he said, the killing was an act of passion.