Serial killer sentenced to death in retrial

Friday, Sept. 24, 1999 | 9:17 a.m.

Defense lawyers for Gerald Gallego argued that he doesn't deserve the death penalty because he was brain-damaged and had been beaten as a child for wetting his bed.

The jury got the case after four days of testimony in a retrial to determine whether Gallego will be executed or get life in prison, with or without parole. Jurors took about an hour Thursday to reach their verdict.

Gallego, who stood up and apologized for the pain he had caused, accepted the verdict calmly. He had decided against taking the stand after learning he wouldn't be allowed to deny guilt or rebut any facts.

"Your guilt has already been decided," visiting District Judge John McGroarty reminded Gallego, 53, of Sacramento, who opted instead to present an unsworn statement to the jury of nine women and three men.

The penalty-phase rerun in Pershing County was ordered by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because of improper suggestions to jurors that he might eventually be paroled if spared execution. He got the death sentence at the earlier trial.

Gallego was convicted of the April 1980 kidnap-murders of Stacey Redican and Karen Chipman Twiggs. Three months after they disappeared from a mall in Citrus Heights, Calif., their bodies were found in shallow graves in the Nevada desert. They had been beaten to death.

At the penalty-phase retrial, prosecutors cited aggravating factors including Gallego's convictions for the Sacramento-area killings in 1980 of Craig Miller, 22, and Mary Elizabeth Sowers, 21. That case resulted in a second death sentence. Authorities suspect him of killing a total of 10 people.

Defense lawyers tried to show Gallego's twisted family background, portraying him as a chronic bed-wetter who suffered severe punishment at the hands of his family.

Gallego expressed dissatisfaction with his lawyers' efforts, saying he wanted to testify and call numerous witnesses, including ex-wife Charlene Williams, to show mitigation.

"Even a Lovelock jury would see the mitigation of Charlene walking through the door, unchained, unguarded, no probation, no parole," Gallego said, reminding the judge that his accomplice was free, having completed a 16-year, eight-month prison term.

But McGroarty ruled that Williams' credibility and her plea agreement weren't relevant to the issue of Gallego's punishment.

During Gallego's previous trial, Williams testified that he kidnapped the girls as part of a serial odyssey of slayings as he searched for the perfect "sex slave."