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Sex offender gets death for North Dakota student's murder

By TIMES WIRES
Published September 23, 2006

FARGO, N.D. - A jury in North Dakota's first death penalty case in nearly a century decided Friday a sex offender should be executed for kidnapping and killing a college student as she left a shopping mall.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 53, of Crookston, Minn., showed no emotion as the sentence was announced in the slaying of Dru Sjodin.

"We hope the need does not arise for another 100 years," U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley said.

The same federal jury convicted Rodriguez on Aug. 30 of kidnapping resulting in Sjodin's death.

North Dakota's last execution was in 1905, and the last person sentenced to death was spared in 1915. The state no longer has the death penalty, but it is allowed in federal cases. Rodriguez was charged under federal law because Sjodin was taken across state lines.

Rodriguez's mother and sister cried as the sentence was read, as did a number of jurors.

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

Sjodin, 22, disappeared from a Grand Forks shopping mall parking lot in 2003. Her body was found five months later in a Minnesota ravine. Authorities said the University of North Dakota student had been beaten, raped and stabbed.

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[Last modified September 23, 2006, 01:20:18]