Penalty phase for serial murderer opens

Tuesday, Sept. 21, 1999 | 9:12 a.m.

"I have no attorney, sir. I'm not represented in this courtroom. There is nobody in this courtroom on my side," Gallego complained.

District Judge John S. McGroarty denied Gallego permission to represent himself at the trial, at which punishment for the murders of two 17-year-old girls kidnapped from a mall in Citrus Heights, Calif., will be decided.

Gallego, who authorities say might have killed 10 people in a crime spree from 1978 to 1980, faces the death penalty. He was sentenced to death, but that conviction was thrown out by 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The court ruled his death sentence was invalid because the judge wrongly suggested to the jury that Gallego might eventually be paroled if he was spared execution.

Gallegos was convicted of killing four people.

On Monday, so long after the crimes, some witnesses found details difficult to recall and had to refer to notes or their earlier testimony.

Gallego's court-appointed public defender, Steven S. McGuire, argued Monday that Gallego should be sentenced to life in prison, rather than death, because his accomplice, Charlene Williams, served just 16 years, eight months for the same crimes.

"That is something we ask you to think about," McGuire told the jurors. "Proportionality."

McGuire also said Gallegos was a victim of extreme mental, physical and emotional abuse, which left him with organic brain damage.

"We do not claim there is some excuse for these murders," McGuire said. "But there are a number of mitigating factors."

The teens, Karen Twiggs and Stacey Redican, were abducted in 1980, driven to Pershing County, raped and then killed with blows to the head from a hammer.

Gallego was sentenced to death in 1984. That penalty verdict was overturned in 1997.