Wednesday, Nov. 5, 1997 | 10:15 a.m.
Terry Childs, 41, was convicted in 1987 of murdering 17-year-old Lois Sigala in Scotts Valley, Calif., 55 miles southeast of San Francisco. He is serving a 41-year sentence in California.
Last fall, Childs told Santa Cruz prosecutors that he was responsible for 11 other murders during an apparent deadly odyssey in the late 1970s.
He said at the time that he could clear up three homicides in Santa Cruz County, one in San Diego, two in Tracy, Calif., two in Seattle, two in Santa Clara County and one in the Reno-Sparks area.
Using the confession as a lead, Nevada authorities found evidence linking Childs to the July 1979 murder in Sparks.
Rulan McGill, 32, was kidnapped, robbed, sexually assaulted and stabbed during a trip to the dentist. Police had no suspects until Childs' confession.
The Washoe County grand jury indicted Childs for first-degree murder, and Deputy District Attorney David Stanton said Childs would be brought to trial here, but said the timing would have to be arranged with the California Department of Corrections.
McGill drove to Reno on July 10, 1979, for a dental appointment and to shop. She was reported missing the next day when she failed to return home.
Two days after she left home, her vehicle was found behind a warehouse. The following morning, the victim's stepfather and an uncle discovered her body in a nearby ditch.
The break in the 18-year-old mystery came in January when Childs started talking and corroborated evidence gathered from the murder scene.
"We believe this person has provided sufficient detail to make him a viable suspect," Sparks Deputy Police Chief Bob Cowman said at a June news conference.
He called the man a predator-killer who's believed to have been involved in as many as a dozen other murders.
Santa Cruz attorney Christopher Smith, who has represented Childs off and on for the past 20 years, said in July that Childs confessed to the crimes to avoid being transferred to Pelican Bay State Prison, known as one of the toughest in the state.
He was moved after stabbing another inmate in the yard at Corcoran State Prison in an apparent murder attempt, Stanton said.
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