Post by Anja Nieser on Sept 26, 2006 15:14:58 GMT -5
A thousand days from disappearance to death penalty
A thousand days passed from the moment when a University of North Dakota
student was abducted from a mall parking lot to the time the man convicted
of killing her was sentenced to death.
Dru Sjodin disappeared in broad daylight on the weekend before
Thanksgiving in 2003, when the rest of the country was planning for the
holidays.
As the days mounted with no signs of Sjodin, the blond sorority girl and
former homecoming queen from Pequot Lakes, Minn., became a household name.
Buttons, posters and billboards read, "Come Home Dru Sjodin." Thousands of
UND students and the National Guard from Minnesota and North Dakota joined
in searches.
A convicted sex offender, Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., of Crookston, Minn., was
arrested on suspicion of her kidnapping. He had been released from prison
six months earlier after serving more than 25 years for assaults on women.
At his initial court appearance, an unidentified woman shouted to
Rodriguez in Spanish to lead authorities to Sjodin's body.
Rodriguez pleaded not guilty.
A retired police officer found Sjodin's body in a ravine near Crookston on
April 17, 2004, during an organized search. A county sheriff announced to
searchers and other officials, "Dru is home."
It was a day that Allan Sjodin, Dru's father, recalled Friday after a jury
of 7 women and 5 men decided that Rodriguez must die by lethal injection.
The death sentence came 1, 036 days after Sjodin disappeared, and after 10
weeks in the courtroom - in what U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley said was the
longest federal trial in North Dakota history.
"There's a stillness," Allan Sjodin said afterward, when asked how his
life will change. "There's a quiet black hollow spot just like the phone
call that ... we got when they found Dru. We stopped living for a short
while.
"Tomorrow, we will go forward," he said. "Our strengths are that we have a
lot of missions, we have a lot of ambition to push those missions. So
we'll wake up ... with our heads up and our shoulders back, and continue
to try to do good."
The case wound up in federal court, where Rodriguez was charged with
kidnapping resulting in death. Wrigley announced in October 2005 that U.S.
Attorney General John Ashcroft would seek the death penalty if Rodriguez
was convicted, even though North Dakota had outlawed capital punishment.
It would be the state's 1st death penalty case in about 100 years.
U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson moved the trial from Grand Forks to
Fargo and postponed it twice. He later denied a defense motion to move the
proceedings to the Minneapolis area, saying he already took extra measures
to ensure a fair trial.
It took five weeks to seat 16 jurors, including 4 alternates. When
testimony began on Aug. 14, defense attorney Robert Hoy criticized
prosecutors for "their zeal to become involved in what was already a
highly publicized case." He said it belonged in state court.
The jury of 7 women and 5 men found Rodriguez guilty on Aug. 30, then
decided in the second phase that he was eligible for the death penalty.
Defense attorneys took center stage in the penalty phase, when death
penalty lawyer Richard Ney outlined more than 30 factors he believed
favored a sentence of life in prison.
The last of those factors was mercy.
"And at the end of the day here I can just ask you to do one thing. I ask
you to spare the life of Alfonso Rodriguez," Ney said, beginning his final
words to the jury before they deliberated the death penalty. "It's in each
your hands to do so."
Wrigley told jurors that "justice is the penalty of death" for Rodriguez.
After about 12 hours of deliberation, the jury agreed.
"Ours is a gentle area," Wrigley said, pausing to gain his composure in a
press conference following the death penalty verdict. "The people of this
region are loving people, and ... the defendant's acts of the last three
decades have brought us to this place at this time."
Linda Walker, Dru's mother has traveled around the country for the last 2
years to push for tougher sex offender laws. A new law named for Sjodin
puts the names of convicted child molesters on a national Internet
database and imposes a felony charge if they fail to update their
whereabouts.
Hoy said he was saddened by the sentence handed Rodriguez, and said he
hoped it would spark debate about "the problems and difficulties" with the
death penalty. Defense attorneys plan to ask for a new trial and were
poised to begin what Ney called "a long and involved" appeal process.
For friends and family of Dru Sjodin, the death sentence closed the
chapter of a thousand days. They are scheduled to plant a tree at the
University of North Dakota on Tuesday, on what would have been her 25th
birthday.
"She got the verdict that she deserved," said Chris Lang, her boyfriend.
"But everybody out there, do not forget her."
(sources: Associated Press and Pioneer Press)
A thousand days passed from the moment when a University of North Dakota
student was abducted from a mall parking lot to the time the man convicted
of killing her was sentenced to death.
Dru Sjodin disappeared in broad daylight on the weekend before
Thanksgiving in 2003, when the rest of the country was planning for the
holidays.
As the days mounted with no signs of Sjodin, the blond sorority girl and
former homecoming queen from Pequot Lakes, Minn., became a household name.
Buttons, posters and billboards read, "Come Home Dru Sjodin." Thousands of
UND students and the National Guard from Minnesota and North Dakota joined
in searches.
A convicted sex offender, Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., of Crookston, Minn., was
arrested on suspicion of her kidnapping. He had been released from prison
six months earlier after serving more than 25 years for assaults on women.
At his initial court appearance, an unidentified woman shouted to
Rodriguez in Spanish to lead authorities to Sjodin's body.
Rodriguez pleaded not guilty.
A retired police officer found Sjodin's body in a ravine near Crookston on
April 17, 2004, during an organized search. A county sheriff announced to
searchers and other officials, "Dru is home."
It was a day that Allan Sjodin, Dru's father, recalled Friday after a jury
of 7 women and 5 men decided that Rodriguez must die by lethal injection.
The death sentence came 1, 036 days after Sjodin disappeared, and after 10
weeks in the courtroom - in what U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley said was the
longest federal trial in North Dakota history.
"There's a stillness," Allan Sjodin said afterward, when asked how his
life will change. "There's a quiet black hollow spot just like the phone
call that ... we got when they found Dru. We stopped living for a short
while.
"Tomorrow, we will go forward," he said. "Our strengths are that we have a
lot of missions, we have a lot of ambition to push those missions. So
we'll wake up ... with our heads up and our shoulders back, and continue
to try to do good."
The case wound up in federal court, where Rodriguez was charged with
kidnapping resulting in death. Wrigley announced in October 2005 that U.S.
Attorney General John Ashcroft would seek the death penalty if Rodriguez
was convicted, even though North Dakota had outlawed capital punishment.
It would be the state's 1st death penalty case in about 100 years.
U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson moved the trial from Grand Forks to
Fargo and postponed it twice. He later denied a defense motion to move the
proceedings to the Minneapolis area, saying he already took extra measures
to ensure a fair trial.
It took five weeks to seat 16 jurors, including 4 alternates. When
testimony began on Aug. 14, defense attorney Robert Hoy criticized
prosecutors for "their zeal to become involved in what was already a
highly publicized case." He said it belonged in state court.
The jury of 7 women and 5 men found Rodriguez guilty on Aug. 30, then
decided in the second phase that he was eligible for the death penalty.
Defense attorneys took center stage in the penalty phase, when death
penalty lawyer Richard Ney outlined more than 30 factors he believed
favored a sentence of life in prison.
The last of those factors was mercy.
"And at the end of the day here I can just ask you to do one thing. I ask
you to spare the life of Alfonso Rodriguez," Ney said, beginning his final
words to the jury before they deliberated the death penalty. "It's in each
your hands to do so."
Wrigley told jurors that "justice is the penalty of death" for Rodriguez.
After about 12 hours of deliberation, the jury agreed.
"Ours is a gentle area," Wrigley said, pausing to gain his composure in a
press conference following the death penalty verdict. "The people of this
region are loving people, and ... the defendant's acts of the last three
decades have brought us to this place at this time."
Linda Walker, Dru's mother has traveled around the country for the last 2
years to push for tougher sex offender laws. A new law named for Sjodin
puts the names of convicted child molesters on a national Internet
database and imposes a felony charge if they fail to update their
whereabouts.
Hoy said he was saddened by the sentence handed Rodriguez, and said he
hoped it would spark debate about "the problems and difficulties" with the
death penalty. Defense attorneys plan to ask for a new trial and were
poised to begin what Ney called "a long and involved" appeal process.
For friends and family of Dru Sjodin, the death sentence closed the
chapter of a thousand days. They are scheduled to plant a tree at the
University of North Dakota on Tuesday, on what would have been her 25th
birthday.
"She got the verdict that she deserved," said Chris Lang, her boyfriend.
"But everybody out there, do not forget her."
(sources: Associated Press and Pioneer Press)