FINALLY! Killer found guilty in Dru Sjodin's murder

[PZelda]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060830/ap_on_re_us/slain_student_trial

Guilty verdict in N.D. student's death

By DAVE KOLPACK, Associated Press Writer
10 minutes ago

FARGO, N.D. - A federal jury found a convicted sex offender guilty Wednesday in the kidnapping and killing of college student Dru Sjodin, whose body was found abandoned in Minnesota a ravine.

The verdict clears the way for the first death penalty deliberations in North Dakota in more than a century.

To read more about her, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dru_Sjodin and http://www.drusvoice.com/

It's about f*cking time. I used to live in a town that was just 90 minutes away from Grand Forks, and I had lived near Grand Forks up until the better part of 2003. When this happened, I had just moved across state so now I don't live near GF anymore. But, when I still lived near there, I used to go to Grand Forks a few times a year to go shopping at that exact same mall that Dru was kidnapped from- so that really struck a nerve with me. I can still clearly remember when her kidnapping made local news first and then it made national news. This kind of thing just DOESN'T happen here. Well, it does, but they don't make national news. This one did. It was in magazines too, to boot.

I am SO happy that this case is finally about to be closed. I really feel for her family.

[Ireneparalegal]

I had totally forgotten abt this case. Thanx for posting. Man, 3 years!!!!???? I tell you, the wheels of justice can be very slow...but in this case it was worth the wait. May she R.I.P.

[Chocoholic]

Personally, I'm sick and tired of hearing about CONVICTED sex offenders going out and committing more crimes. When is society going to wake up and demand our government do more to keep these perverted monsters behind bars where they belong? Or better yet, give these deploarbale creatures the death penalty!

Rest in peace, Dru. It's a shame your life had to be violently taken away because some people are stupid enough to think that sex offenders won't reoffend after they've been let out of prison.

[Myles]

Wasn't her boyfriend or a friend the last person to hear her alive? Wasn't she on her cell when she was attacked? Maybe I am thinking of another case, but I remember something along the lines of a boyfriend/friend hearing her being surprised.

Anyway, it is awful. A young, beautiful girl that is full of life and aspiration to be cut short because of a deranged sex offender.

Time must fly because I too can't believe its already been three years since this case unfolded.

[Number 9 Dream]

Wow, such a sad case :( I am so glad they finally got the guy and are pursuing the death penalty (as they should).

R.I.P. Dru :(

[PZelda]

Wasn't her boyfriend or a friend the last person to hear her alive? Wasn't she on her cell when she was attacked? Maybe I am thinking of another case, but I remember something along the lines of a boyfriend/friend hearing her being surprised.

Anyway, it is awful. A young, beautiful girl that is full of life and aspiration to be cut short because of a deranged sex offender.

Time must fly because I too can't believe its already been three years since this case unfolded.
Yeah, the Wiki article I linked to explains what happened. Dru had just finished her shift @ Victoria's Secret and shopped for a while @ Marshall Fields at the mall, and she was walking out to the parking lot to her car so that she could leave and go back to University of North Dakota (UND). On the way out, she was on her phone, talking to her boyfriend. All of a sudden, her boyfriend heard, "Oh no! Ok, ok!" and the phone went dead. Dru apparently tried to call her boyfriend again about 3 hours later, but no real conversation took place- only numbers being dialed, and a bunch of static. Her boyfriend was the last person Dru talked to, and that was the last time anybody heard anything from her.

If I recall, she was in her senior year at UND and would have graduated in the spring of 2004.

This is one of only a handful of cases from ND that has gotten national attention, so this is a really big deal that this is finally happening.

[PZelda]

They made the sentencing today. They have sentenced her killer to death row.

This is North Dakota's first death penalty case in more than 100 years.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060922/ap_on_re_us/slain_student_trial

Death sentence for student's slaying

By DAVE KOLPACK, Associated Press Writer
3 minutes ago

FARGO, N.D. - Jurors on Friday sentenced a convicted sex offender to death for kidnapping and killing University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin, whose body was found in a Minnesota ravine nearly five months after she disappeared.

It was North Dakota's first death penalty case in more than a century. The state does not have the death penalty but it is allowed in federal cases.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 53, of Crookston, Minn., looked straight ahead and showed no emotion as the sentence was announced.

"We hope the need does not arise for another 100 years," U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley said. "The defendant's acts of the last three decades have brought us to this place at this time," he said, referring to Rodriguez's earlier convictions for assaults on women going back to 1975.

"I know it wasn't an easy decision for the jurors," Sjodin's mother, Linda Walker, said afterward, her voice shaking. "But Dru's voice was heard today."

The jury reached its decision after more than a day and a half of deliberations. The same federal jury convicted Rodriguez on Aug. 30 on a charge of kidnapping resulting in Sjodin's death.

Rodriguez's mother, Dolores, and sister, Ileanna Noyes, cried as the verdict was announced, as did a number of the jurors.

Sjodin, 22, of Pequot Lakes, Minn., disappeared from a Grand Forks shopping mall parking lot on Nov. 22, 2003, and her body was found the following April in a ravine near Crookston. Authorities said she was beaten, raped and stabbed.

Rodriguez, who got out of prison about six months before the killing, was charged under federal law because Sjodin was taken across state lines.

Earlier, in his statements to jurors, Wrigley said the death penalty would be the "right thing, in the right case." He stood near her portrait and asked for justice.

Rodriguez's attorney, Richard Ney, asked the jury for mercy after calling psychologists and Rodriguez's family to talk about his childhood of poverty, abuse and exposure to farm chemicals. Ney also said Rodriguez had been anxious about being released from prison after serving more than 20 years for assaults on three women in 1975 and 1980.

Walker and Allan Sjodin, Dru's father, said they could have accepted a sentence of life in prison.

"Whatever would have happened, we would have been equally satisfied," Sjodin said. "For Dru's sake, this needed to happen."

If this needs to be moved to the politics board, that is fine with me too.

[Chocoholic]

I just hope his execution is carried out soon so he doesn't waste taxpayer money for the next 15-20 years. He showed no mercy for Dru. He deserves no mercy for himself. I hope he rots in Hell. He shouldn't have been let out after the first time he assaulted a woman. Whoever decided to let this monster out of prison is just as guilty of Dru's death as he is.