Competency hearing under way for convicted sex-slave killer

LOVELOCK, Nev. - Gerald Gallego returns today to the same Pershing County courthouse where he was sentenced to death 15 years ago for the kidnapping and murder of two California girls snatched from a Sacramento shopping mall in 1980.

Two experts testifying at his latest competency hearing on Monday told the judge they believed he was mentally fit to move forward with a new hearing on whether he should be executed.

A federal appeals court ruled two years ago that his death sentence was invalid because the judge wrongly suggested to the jury that Gallego - who also was sentenced to death in California - might eventually be paroled if he was spared execution.

The Nevada attorney general's office tried to appeal that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, but a mailroom snafu kept the legal challenge from arriving at the high court until after the deadline.

Public defenders maintain Gallego is incompetent to go ahead with a new sentencing hearing as ordered by the appellate court, citing recent examinations by California doctors who reported he suffered from hallucinations and was sleeping under his prison bed.

But two doctors testifying during the competency hearing in Pershing County District Court on Monday said they suspected Gallego was faking the behavior.

"I didn't see any clear evidence of mental illness," said Dr. H. Hale Henson, chief psychiatrist at the state's Lake's Crossing Center for the Mentally Disordered Offender in Sparks.

"His method is not to cooperate with those he considers the enemy. He has a strategy and carries it out and has had some success with it," he said.

Clark County District Judge John S. McGroarty is presiding over the competency hearing because Pershing County's judges are former prosecutors who helped convict Gallego in 1984 in the murders of Karen Twiggs and Stacey Redican, both 17, of Citrus Heights, Calif. Their bodies were found in July 1980 in shallow graves in a remote canyon near Lovelock.

Gallego, 52, with his gray hair combed back and neatly trimmed mustache and beard, stared down at a table throughout the hearing. He occasionally glanced around the round courtroom during the 45 minutes he sat alone at the table before the hearing began.

He was implicated in the killings by his common-law wife, Charlene Williams, who was paroled last summer after nearly 17 years in prison for her role in the two Nevada killings.

Williams told authorities that Gallego was looking for "the perfect sex slave" and used her as bait to gain the confidence of his victims. She admitted being an accomplice in 10 killings, six of which have never been charged.

Gallego's California death sentence was for the murders of Mary-Beth Sowers and Craig Miller, who disappeared from a Sacramento mall parking lot in November 1980 and were later found shot to death.

Gallego was hospitalized for depression in California in the 1970s, but he never has been diagnosed with any mental illness during his 14 years in Nevada prisons.

"There was no indication in any records that he exhibited any severe mental illness," said Dr. Betsy Neighbors, a clinical psychologist at the Lake's Crossing center.

Henson and Neighbors said Gallego had no trouble communicating with prison staff about his treatment regimen for diabetes. He also negotiated logically with staff about his medical bills.

"He asked on occasion what his blood sugar targets should be," Neighbors said. "He was able to communicate in a logical manner. ... If he can hold and process that information, it stands that he can do the same regarding legal information."

Although he refused to meet with her at the prison, Neighbors said he was neatly dressed and well-groomed when she saw him in his prison cell on three or four occasions over the past four months.

"It reinforced my belief he was not suffering from some mental illness or depression or some sort of thought disorder that would keep him from reasoning on things he needed to go to court," she said.

Pershing County District Attorney Belinda Quilici said if Gallego is found competent, resentencing could continue as early as September.

"I think it went well," she said after the three hours of testimony on Monday.

Steve McGuire, the Nevada public defender representing Gallego, said witnesses Tuesday would include one of the California doctors who concluded Gallego was incompetent. The competency hearing is expected to conclude Wednesday.

"It went the way we expected," he said after Monday's testimony. "Basically, these are the state's witnesses. We'll see how it all sorts out in the end."

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