Murderer could be tried locally

Andrew Edwards

Confessed serial killer Andrew Urdiales could stand trial in Orange

County for five California homicides including the killing of a

Laguna Beach woman in 1986.

“We’re looking forward to getting him back here so we can try him

for the crimes he’s committed not only in Orange County but in

Riverside and San Diego counties,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Howard Gundy

said.

Urdiales, 40, is being held in prison in Pontiac, Ill., having

been convicted of three murders in that state, where he is awaiting a

judge’s decision on whether he will go to death row.

The extradition cannot be completed until sentencing procedures

are completed in Illinois, Gundy said.

Urdiales admitted in 1997 to the 1986 killing of Robbin Brandley,

then 23, of Laguna Beach, in the parking lot of Mission Viejo’s

Saddleback College. At the time, Urdiales was a member of the U.S.

Marine Corps and returned to his base after the crime.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department did not connect Urdiales to

the Brandley homicide until Chicago police told them about Urdiales’

confession, Capt. Bob Blackburn said. Urdiales and Brandley were

complete strangers, a difficulty for deputies, since most victims

know their killers.

“Robbin Brandley was about as random as they come,” Blackburn

said. “Those [cases] have always been the toughest.”

Confessions are not enough for a criminal conviction, Blackburn

said, but when he interviewed Urdiales, he gave enough information to

point deputies to important clues. Blackburn did not disclose what

those clues were.

“He gave us plenty to corroborate,” Blackburn said. “It was

detailed.”

Urdiales confessed to eight slayings in Southern California and

Illinois between 1986 and 1996 after he was arrested by Chicago

police in 1997, according to an Illinois court document. Brandley was

Urdiales’ first victim in a 10-year string of killings that left

eight women in California and Illinois dead.

He also confessed to kidnapping, raping and attempting to kill a

woman in Palm Springs in 1992.

In Illinois, where Urdiales worked as a security guard, police

linked Urdiales to three killings after ballistics testing revealed

the victims had been killed by a gun taken from Urdiales by police in

Hammond, Ind.

In May 2002, a Cook County jury sentenced Urdiales to death for

two of the murders, committed in 1996. Despite his confession to

police, he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity at his trial.

Urdiales is quoted in the document as telling a psychiatrist retained

by his defense that he planned to “be a serial killer” when he killed

Brandley.

He is also quoted as telling a Cook County forensic psychiatrist

that his victims were “targets of opportunity” and that “there is

nothing to regret.”

Urdiales’ death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment in

January 2003 when Illinois governor George Ryan commuted the

sentences of all death row inmates in that state.

He was again sentenced to death by a jury in May for the 1996

murder of a woman who lived in Livingston County, Ill. A judge is

scheduled to formally pronounce sentence in August.

The Illinois judge could decide against the jury’s recommendation

and not sentence Urdiales to die, Gundy said. While a decision on

whether to seek the death penalty in Orange County court has not been

made, Urdiales would be eligible for capital punishment if convicted

of the California homicides.

Urdiales admitted to a 1988 killing in Cathedral City, a homicide

in San Diego that same year, a 1989 slaying in Palm Springs and

another killing in that city in 1995.

Riverside and San Diego County officials have already agreed to

trying the cases concurrently, Gundy said, and one benefit is that a

single trial can save the victims’ families from the emotional strain

of a series of trials.

“I think it will be a major benefit for the victim’s families,” he

said.