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Death Row Inmate Faces Single Trial Of 5 Murders

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Mar 26, 2006 12:51 pm US/Pacific

Death Row Inmate Faces Single Trial Of 5 Murders

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) ―

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A man who spent most of the last 26 years on death row will face a single trial on charges that he killed a 12-year-old Orange County girl and four women in Los Angeles County.

A Superior Court judge ruled Friday that the cases will be combined.

Rodney Alcala, 62, was on death row for the 1979 kidnapping and killing Robin Samsoe of Huntington Beach. She vanished while bicycling to a dance lesson and her remains were later found in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills.

Alcala was twice convicted but both convictions were thrown out. He now is in Orange County jail, awaiting a second retrial in the case.

In September, he also was charged with sexually assaulting and strangling four women in Los Angeles County in the 1970s.

Authorities say DNA tests linked him to the killings.