Sex slave killer loses bid to represent self

Wednesday, Sept. 1, 1999 | 2:40 a.m.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOVELOCK, Nev. - A motion by convicted "sex slave" killer Gerald Gallego to represent himself in a new penalty hearing has been denied by a Pershing County judge.

The move clears the way for a hearing to begin Sept. 13 that could lead to Gallego's being sentenced to death a second time for a 1980 double murder.

Final motions were heard last week by visiting District Judge John McGroarty in preparation for the new penalty phase of Gallego's 1984 trial in Lovelock.

In addition to denying Gallego's motion to represent himself, a second motion to fire his court-appointed public defenders also was denied.

Gallego will be represented by Nevada State Public Defender Steven McGuire and Robert Dolan of the Winnemucca regional Office.

McGuire said Tuesday he expects the trial to take three to four weeks, with as many as five days to seat a jury.

The new sentencing hearing for Gallego is for the 1980 murders of two California teen-agers. Gallego was convicted of killing Karen Twiggs and Stacey Redican after kidnapping the two from a Sacramento shopping mall.

They were found dead in a remote Pershing County canyon.

A jury sentenced Gallego to death in 1984, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Gallego's death sentence was invalid because it was wrongly suggested to the jury that Gallego - who also is under a death sentence in California - might eventually be paroled if he were spared execution.

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

Gallego's former common-law wife, Charlene Williams, testified during his trial that he kidnapped the girls as part of a serial odyssey of slayings as he searched for the perfect sex slave.