CA CA - Andrew Urdiales - Charged In Five Calif. Murders, 1986-95

[OkieGranny]

From September:

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinio...cle_5deac238-c117-5802-b23e-a54592fb043d.html

Police and prosecutors allege Tammie Erwin was shot and killed by serial killer Andrew Urdiales on April 15, 1989, in Palm Springs, Calif. She was just 18...

He was convicted of three Illinois murders, including two on the Chicago side of Wolf Lake near the Hammond border.... Now, nearly four years later, he is still awaiting trial in Orange County, Calif., for the murders of five women there, including Erwin's daughter...

Urdiales is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing Dec. 4 with the trial tentatively scheduled to begin Feb. 16, 2016.

 

[Inthedetails]

"How I Escaped a Serial Killer"

Jennifer Asbenson recalls her hellish encounter with serial killer Andrew Urdiales.

http://nypost.com/2017/01/30/how-i-escaped-a-serial-killer/

 

[JoeFromLB]

After doing a quick search through the court records on Urdiales, it looks like he's not even close to a trial.

This has been delayed for years. The court system is totally broken in California. At least he's in custody.

 

[JoeFromLB]

Ignore my previous post. He's scheduled to go to trial (finally!) on March 5th.

I hope and pray there will be no further delays. This has gone on long enough.

 

[JoeFromLB]

Article from March 21st that indicates his murder trial has begun. I'll keep an eye out for updates.

http://www.kesq.com/news/trial-for-accused-coachella-valley-serial-killer-begins/719433183

 

[JerseyGirl]

Closing arguments began Monday in the trial of a man accused in the deaths of five women in three Southern California counties, including a college student who was attacked in a campus parking lot.

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/...e-County-Trial-Andrew-Urdiales-482565481.html

 

[JoeFromLB]

That poor young woman, Robbin Brandley, whom he randomly selected then viciously stabbed to death after she left a concert at Saddleback College. Praying that her poor family, who have suffered interminable years of delays, will finally obtain a measure of justice.

The others he killed, too. May they all rest in peace.

 

[JoeFromLB]

GUILTY!

Urdiales was found guilty on all counts, with special circumstances that will make him eligible for the death penalty. That phase of the trial will begin next Tuesday.

Finally, justice after so many years.

Jurors find convicted serial killer guilty of 5 Southern California murders – Orange County Register

 

[JerseyGirl]

Family members of murdered women testify in death penalty trial of 8-time serial killer – Orange County Register

Closing arguments in the penalty phase of the trial are scheduled to begin on Thursday.

 

[JerseyGirl]

Andrew Urdiales Trial: Survivor Recounts Horrific Torture at Hands of California Serial Killer

Jennifer Asbenson was 19 when she was abducted by Urdiales. But 25 years later, she returned to California's Desert Hot Springs to record a video explaining her escape in hopes of encouraging others to never give up.

On August 31, a California judge will determine whether Urdiales will be sent to death row.

 

[Jasper52]

Serial killer Andrew Urdiales sentenced to death in murders of 5 women in Southern California

Serial killer Andrew Urdiales, who was convicted of the first-degree murders of five Southern California women between 1986 and 1995, was sentenced to death Friday.

The 53-year-old former Marine was found guilty by a unanimous verdict over the five murders that occurred in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties.

 

[EuTuCroquet?]

Serial killer convicted in murders of five Southern California women is sentenced to death - Los Angeles Times

A former Marine convicted of brutally slaying five women in Southern California and three in Illinois over the course of a decade was sentenced to death Friday.

An Orange County Superior Court jury convicted Andrew Urdiales, 54, in May of five counts of special-circumstances murder, which prompted a second phase of the trial to determine whether he should serve life behind bars or face the death penalty.

Jurors ultimately recommended in June that he receive capital punishment for killing Robbin Brandley, Julie McGhee, Maryann Wells, Tammie Erwin and Denise Maney between 1986 and 1995. Judge Gregg Prickett affirmed that recommendation on Friday.

“I’m gratified that we finally got this result. When you think about the serial killings and terrible things he did, it’s hard to think of Urdiales as a person — he’s a human monster,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said in a prepared statement Friday.

Urdiales’ killings in Southern California began in January 1986 when he stabbed 23-year-old Brandley 41 times in the back, neck, chest and hands with a hunting knife as she walked to her car in a dimly lit parking lot at Saddleback College after a piano concert, according to prosecutors.

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[EuTuCroquet?]

Illinois killer sentenced to death for 5 California murders

Charles Erwin, whose 18-year-old daughter Tammie was fatally shot in the head after Urdiales picked her up and drove her to a remote area of Palm Springs, talked in court about the severe impact her death has had on him.

Urdiales "not only killed my daughter, but he killed me inside," Erwin said, according to prosecutors. "This has ruined my life. It has turned my physical being into pieces, my mental being into pieces."

The California murders went unsolved for years until Urdiales was arrested after he returned home to Illinois.

Authorities stopped Urdiales in 1996 and found a gun in his truck, prosecutors said. That weapon was matched the following year to the one used to kill the Illinois women.​

 

[EuTuCroquet?]

8-time serial killer gets death penalty for murders in Orange, Riverside, San Diego counties – Orange County Register

For the third time, Andrew Urdiales, now 53, received the death penalty, this time for killing Robbin Brandley in 1986 in a Saddleback College parking lot in Mission Viejo, and for the murders over the following seven years of Julie McGhee, Tammie Erwin and Denise Maney in Riverside County and Mary Ann Wells in San Diego.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Gregg L. Prickett said the “repulsive crimes of violence” that Urdiales committed were to “satisfy his own lust and anger on those weaker than himself.”
...

Jennifer Asbenson, the only known woman to escape Urdiales, in a remote Riverside County desert in 1992, told the judge that she still has nightmares about her near-fatal ordeal, saying it “is surreal to be standing here, because I imagined I was going to be chopped up and left in that desert.”

“I forgive you for what you did to me,” Asbenson told Urdiales. “That does not mean what you did was right, not one bit. That is not because you don’t deserve the death penalty, because we all know you do.”

Urdiales, shortly after his 1997 arrest, confessed to carrying out the Orange County killing while stationed as a U.S. Marine at Camp Pendleton; the four murders in Riverside and San Diego counties while stationed at Twentynine Palms; and three slayings in Chicago in 1996 while working as a security guard after leaving the military.

Urdiales’ attorneys unsuccessfully sought to have the death penalty taken off of the table, noting that he was born with brain damage from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a result of his mother drinking during her pregnancy.

During his trial, the defense attorneys told jurors that Urdiales’ childhood in Chicago was marked by emotional, physical and psychological abuse, while his teenage years in Burnham, Ill., saw him targeted for relentless harassment and attacks by his peers.​

 

[margarita25]

"How I Escaped a Serial Killer"

Jennifer Asbenson recalls her hellish encounter with serial killer Andrew Urdiales.

http://nypost.com/2017/01/30/how-i-escaped-a-serial-killer/

Thank you for posting this article. Amazing story.

She might have reinvented herself, but Asbenson in not afraid to reflect on the past. She said returning to the desert for the first time since she was nearly murdered wasn’t an emotional experience.

““The desert didn’t hurt me, so why should I be afraid of it?” she told News.com.au.

“The places I went in my mind were scarier.”“

 

[JoeFromLB]

Urdiales was found dead in his cell at San Quentin prison over the weekend. His death is being investigated as a suicide.

Serial killer and former Camp Pendleton Marine dies by suicide on death row

 

[MsGazette]

Just finished reading Asbenson’s book. Definitely worth the read.
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