Killer wins new hearing on sentencing

CARSON CITY -- The U.S. Supreme Court Monday ordered a new penalty hearing for Gerald Gallego, convicted of murdering two 17-year-old girls near Lovelock.

A spokesman for Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa said the hearing would probably be held before the end of the year.

Gallego, 51, was convicted of the April 1980 hammer slaying of Karen Twiggs and Stacey Redican, who were kidnapped from a Sacramento, Calif., shopping center. Trial testimony indicated that Gallego was searching for "sex slaves." Their bodies were found three months later in a shallow desert grave near Lovelock.

Gallego is also facing the death penalty in California for the fatal shooting of sweethearts Craig Miller, 22, and Mary Beth Sowers, 21, who were abducted at gunpoint from a parking lot of a shopping mall in Sacramento in November 1980. His appeals in those cases are still pending.

Charlene Williams, who twice wed Gallego only to find out their marriages were void because he was married to other women, was the chief witness against Gallego. She said she helped him commit 10 murders in three states over a 26-month period starting in 1978.

Two of those alleged victims, Brenda Judd, 13, and Sandra Colley, 14, were kidnapped from the Washoe County Fair in Reno in June 1979 but their bodies have never been found.

Williams served about 16 years in prison and has since been released.

Gallego has pursued a number of appeals on his Nevada murder conviction and included a list of 40 trial errors to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court rejected 39 but said the jury in Pershing County was inadequately informed whether it was necessary to sentence Gallego to death to ensure he could not be released early from prison.

Attorneys for Gallego and Del Papa's office each appealed. But the Del Papa appeal reached the U.S. Supreme Court late, due to a snafu in the state mailing system. Del Papa asked the court to consider the state's appeal anyway. But it refused.

Del Papa complained the entire appeal system is to blame. Gallego was convicted in 1984.

"Death row inmates should not be allowed to take advantage of technicalities having nothing to do with the substantive criminal process. It is time for our courts to recognize this and stop the abuse of criminal appeals process.

"This situation is especially tragic when you take into consideration the nature of the Gallego case and the fact that Gallego has already made four trips up the appeals ladder, delaying justice for almost 14 years," Del Papa said.

Gallego's father, Gerald A. Gallego, was the first man executed in the gas chamber in Mississippi in 1955 for the killing of a police officer.

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