Gallego competent to be resentenced

Wednesday, June 2, 1999 | 2:18 a.m.

The ruling by District Judge John McGroarty means prosecutors can proceed with a new penalty hearing for Gallego, who previously was sentenced to die for the crimes.

Two years ago, a federal appeals court ruled his death sentence was invalid because the judge wrongly suggested to the jury that Gallego - who also was sentenced to death in California - might eventually be paroled if he was spared execution.

The Nevada attorney general's office tried to appeal that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, but a mailroom blunder kept the legal challenge from arriving at the high court until after the deadline.

Gallego was convicted in 1984 in the murders of Karen Twiggs and Stacey Redican. The bodies of the two 17-year-olds were found in July 1980 in shallow graves in a remote canyon near Lovelock.

During trial, Gallego's common-law wife Charlene Williams testified Gallego was looking for "the perfect sex slave." She admitted to being an accomplice in ten killings, six of which have never been charged.

No date has been set for his new sentencing hearing.

Gallego was sentenced to die in California for the murders of Mary-Beth Sowers and Craig Miller, who disappeared from a Sacramento mall parking lot in November 1980 and were later found shot to death.

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