Canada abolished the death penalty 1976, some 14 years after the country’s 710th and final execution was carried out. And while public debate about bringing back capital punishment continues to this day—usually whenever a particularly heinous homicide makes headlines—it’s extremely unlikely it will ever return. However, that didn’t prevent me from being able to cover a notorious criminal case for the Winnipeg Free Press in which the life of a suspected killer was literally on the line. And I didn’t have to go far for it, either. A horrific crime had occurred just a couple hours south of Winnipeg, in the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota. The trial would be held one more hour down the highway, in Fargo. The case certainly hit home with Manitobans—and for me, personally.
My family and I were actually in Grand Forks on the very weekend that Dru Sjodin went missing. We saw the posters going up around town the following morning, having no idea just how serious this would end up being. My wife even recognized her picture as belonging to friendly store clerk she had spoken to while shopping in Columbia Mall. That was just a few hours before this awful crime occurred.
In the early days of my trial coverage, dozens of readers phoned and emailed to weigh in on the case or pass along their sympathies to the victim’s family. Some of Manitoba’s youth attend the University of North Dakota and knew the victim from campus. Dozens of people made the 150-minute drive south to volunteer in the search for the missing girl. Thousands visit the mall she was abducted from every year. To many, it felt like she was “one of our own.”
It was a truly surreal and memorable experience. I may have just been a short distance from home, but the differences in the Canadian and American justice systems were on full display.
She was the blond, blue-eyed beauty, a homecoming queen and all-American girl with a million-dollar smile. The world appeared to be hers for the taking. Yet Dru Sjodin wouldn’t see her 23rd birthday, graduate from the University of North Dakota, get married or accomplish her many goals and dreams. Her future was stolen, her life snuffed out, in the cruelest and most inhumane of ways.
Now the man accused of Sjodin’s horrific November 2003 kidnapping, torture and killing was locked in his own battle to survive. Alfonso Rodriguez, 53, was about to begin his murder trial in Fargo in a case expected to attract the same kind of international attention and emotion as Sjodin’s heartbreaking, five-month disappearance did. He had pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty if Rodriguez was convicted, based on a previous criminal history that includes a 23-year kidnapping and rape sentence he’d just finished serving in May 2003. They also hinted at the “especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner” in which Sjodin’s killing was carried out. What was already known was difficult enough to digest.
“Oh my God.” Sjodin’s last known words, screamed into a telephone while speaking with her boyfriend, Chris Lang, immediately hinted at something sinister. It was shortly after 5 p.m. on Saturday, November 22, 2003, when Sjodin was walking out of the popular Columbia Mall shopping centre in Grand Forks and heading to her car. The senior at UND had just finished her shift at Victoria’s Secret.
Sjodin’s cellphone went dead. Police later found her car sitting empty in the snow-swept mall parking lot. An immediate appeal for help was launched. Posters were plastered around Grand Forks and surrounding communities. Police went public looking for tips. The case quickly captured international media attention due to a combination of the random nature of the abduction, Sjodin’s “girl-next-door” looks and her family’s willingness to speak out. There were tearful family appearances on all the major network shows.
Rodriguez, who was living just across the border in nearby Crookston, Minnesota, was quickly identified as a suspect. He was arrested and charged with kidnapping. But there was still no sign of Sjodin. And Rodriguez wasn’t talking. An unprecedented investigation and search continued. Numerous federal, state and municipal police agencies and more than 200 officers became involved. Nearly 2,000 volunteers turned up, including family, friends, fellow students and complete strangers from all over, to help search daily over a frozen plain that spanned two states and dozens of kilometres. It all ended in sorrow on April 17, 2004. Sjodin’s body, wrapped in a blanket, was found in a ravine just outside Crookston. There would be no miracle happy ending.
North Dakota abolished capital punishment decades ago, but Rodriguez was now facing potential death because he allegedly kidnapped Sjodin in North Dakota, then disposed of her in Minnesota, making the act a federal crime, not a state crime. North Dakota hadn’t executed someone since 1905. The case was expected to generate much regional debate about the merits of the death penalty. Even Sjodin’s loved ones appeared divided, with some suggesting nothing but death for Rodriguez would satisfy them while others questioned whether it was what Sjodin would have wanted.
“This is a decision most of us wanted. If this case doesn’t warrant the death penalty, then they might as well just do away with it,” said Bob Heales, a Sjodin family friend and private investigator who led search efforts for months.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s decision to seek the ultimate punishment for Rodriguez upon conviction came despite strong opposition to the death penalty in North Dakota. “My overall sense is that people are very accepting of the decision in this case,” said Heales, noting the extraordinary circumstances of Sjodin’s case.
Sjodin’s mother said she supported the decision to seek the death penalty. “We look forward to the case moving ahead,” Linda Walker told the Grand Forks Herald. “We appreciate the continued support and prayers we have received from people who have brought Dru into their hearts.”
Richard Ney, the expert death-penalty attorney who was helping defend Rodriguez, said he was disappointed but not surprised. “One thing that certainly disappointed us is that this decision was made despite the longstanding position of the people of North Dakota against capital punishment,” Ney said. Ney predicted the wide opposition to the death penalty in North Dakota would pose a practical problem for the defence and for the trial in general. “The jury in a death-penalty case can only be made up of people who say they are not morally opposed to the death penalty, or they will be excluded from the jury,” Ney said. “In a state where there is not widespread support for the death penalty, it may be more problematic to get a jury of one’s peers.”
The life-and-death battle was about to begin.
THURSDAY JULY 6, 2006
There was an angel in the courtroom. Dru Sjodin’s family members said they felt her spirit when they walked in to face the man accused of kidnapping, torturing and murdering her.
“She sits on my shoulder. She’s my strength,” Allan Sjodin told a throng of nearly two dozen reporters outside the Quentin N. Burdick federal courthouse in Fargo. “She’s always in our hearts. She will be forever,” added Sjodin’s mother, Linda Walker. The couple was expecting the death penalty trial against Alfonso Rodriguez to finally begin and walked into court with a mix of emotions. “We’re tense. And very anxious, of course,” said Walker.
Unfortunately, the case got off to bumpy start when a computer glitch forced an unexpected adjournment. Lawyers were supposed to begin selecting jurors to hear the case against Rodriguez. But the trial was delayed when justice officials noticed the first 15 prospective jurors who were supposedly randomly selected from a pool of nearly 600 all hailed from the same small town of Valley City, ND. The company behind the computer program originally claimed it was a statistical “anomaly” and not a sign of a problem with the random selection process. They later conceded there might be a glitch. US District Judge Ralph Erickson said it wasn’t safe to proceed and decided to put off jury selection for a day so that a new list of 15 could be generated.
“We have one mission here. And that’s for justice,” Allan Sjodin said after learning of the adjournment.
FRIDAY JULY 7, 2006
It was a clear message sent from several prospective jurors: Finding an unbiased panel to hear the case was going to be a monumental task. The challenge only grew larger after an entire day of intense examination by prosecutors and defence lawyers yielded just one person that lawyers could agree was suitable for jury duty. Many others were sent packing based on their candid responses to questions about Sjodin case.
“The Bible states, ‘he who kills shall be killed.’ That’s God’s message,” said one woman, who also admitted her husband and parents have made their views about capital punishment crystal clear in the wake of her jury subpoena. “Everyone close to me is very much for it and that [the accused] should get the death penalty,” she said.
An elderly grandmother of six was also sent home when she admitted her mind was already made up about Rodriguez’s guilt. “Given the evidence already provided through the media, I believe he committed the crime,” she said. She also proclaimed she’s in favour of executing people who commit “horrific” crimes.
Another woman expressed doubt at her ability to be fair, noting she has a daughter the same age as Sjodin who was attending UND at the time. “It will be hard for me to be impartial, knowing it could have been her,” she said.
A married, middle-aged stay-at-home mother of three told court she would only consider death—not the alternative of life in prison with no parole—if Rodriguez was found to have committed an intentional murder. “Why should the life of a criminal be spared?” she asked.
MONDAY AUGUST 14, 2006
The jury was finally set. The answers would finally start coming. How exactly did Dru Sjodin die? Was the University of North Dakota student killed immediately? Did she suffer? What prompted the shocking daytime kidnapping outside a busy Grand Forks mall? How well planned was the attack? Did she know it was coming? Why was she targeted? And what exactly do prosecutors mean when they say she was murdered in an “especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner?”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Reisenauer held nothing back in his opening statement. Jurors were told how Sjodin was kidnapped from the busy Columbia Mall parking lot in Grand Forks and how her body was found five months later in a ravine near Crookston, MN, after snow melted. Sjodin was nude from the waist down, her hands bound behind her back, a rope around her neck and the remnants of a plastic bag still around her face. She had also suffered a slashed throat and possible stab wound to the chest. “He left her in a ditch to die,” said Reisenauer, who also alleged that Rodriguez sexually assaulted Sjodin before killing her.
Rodriguez’s lawyers also made an opening statement and offered up an unusual defence—taking no issue with the allegation Rodriguez killed Sjodin but focusing almost entirely on where the murder took place. Defence lawyer Robert Hoy told jurors Rodriguez shouldn’t face federal charges because Sjodin was likely already dead by the time she got to Minnesota. “This is simply the wrong charge in the wrong court. It’s entirely possible Dru Sjodin died... in a matter of minutes while still in the Columbia Mall parking lot. The transportation of a deceased person across state lines is not a federal kidnapping,” said Hoy. Hoy said prosecutors laid the federal charge “in their zeal to become involved in an already highly publicized case.” He said Rodriguez should instead be facing a state charge of murder, which would not make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted.
An autopsy couldn’t provide a conclusive cause of Sjodin’s death but found asphyxiation, trauma and/or exposure to the winter elements could all be factors, Reisenauer said. Doctors were also unable to pinpoint a time of death.
Police found Sjodin’s cellphone just a few feet away from her body—a discovery that could prove critical for the theory of the prosecution. Sjodin had called her boyfriend, Chris Lang, as she walked out of Columbia Mall around 5 p.m. following her shift at the Victoria’s Secret. The line suddenly went dead. Police believe it was at that moment Rodriguez grabbed Sjodin and forced her into his car.
Lang was concerned and called back at least eight times but got no answer. His hopes were briefly raised when he got a call from Sjodin’s number around 8 p.m. However, Lang could only hear static and muffled sounds. The connection was lost again, said Reisenauer. Police traced the call to a cellphone tower near Crookston, MN, and focused much of their search on the area but were initially unable to find anything. But prosecutors intended to argue that phone call proved she was still alive while in Minnesota.
Police began looking at known sex offenders in the area and interviewed Rodriguez two days after Sjodin went missing. He was living at the time about 6.5 kilometres from where Sjodin’s body would eventually be found. He admitted he had been in Grand Forks on the day in question to do some shopping but claimed he was in a movie theatre at the time, said Reisenauer. When asked to name the movie, Rodriguez initially couldn’t but later told police it was Once Upon A Time starring Antonio Bandares. However, his apparent alibi began to unravel when police checked around and learned the movie wasn’t playing anywhere in Grand Forks at the time.
Police got a warrant to search Rodriguez’s vehicle and home and made several key discoveries. A knife— matching an empty sheath found near Sjodin’s car in the Grand Forks parking lot—was in the trunk. Rodriguez claimed he was using it to cut sheet rock, but his employer claimed that wasn’t true. Police also found tiny droplets of blood in Rodriguez’s car, which they eventually matched with Sjodin’s DNA. Forensic experts were also able to find a strand of Rodriguez’s hair on Sjodin’s body and fibres from Sjodin’s shirt and jacket on his boots, gloves and in his car. They had the proverbial smoking gun.
Canadian air force pilot Julian White would never forget the desperate search for his good friend, Dru Sjodin, or the void left in his life by her tragic death. White, who was currently living in Moose Jaw, Sask., was one of the first witnesses to testify. He was also one of the last people to speak with Sjodin and raced around Grand Forks the night she disappeared hoping to find a trace of her. “She was a bubbly, happy girl. Everybody loved her. She was an American sweetheart,” White told reporters outside court after finishing his day on the witness stand.
White met Sjodin while both were attending the University of North Dakota. White—who returned to Canada after completing his aviation studies—was dating Sjodin’s roommate, Margaret Flategraff, at the time. He was in Toronto on the day Sjodin went missing but spoke with her briefly around noon. Sjodin mentioned she was on her way to work. White told jurors he flew to Winnipeg and then drove back to Grand Forks later that evening. He arrived at his girlfriend’s apartment to learn Sjodin hadn’t been heard from since her phone went dead in a conversation hours earlier with her boyfriend.
“I went out to look for her and was driving the route between Dru’s apartment and the mall. I drove all around but I found nothing,” White told court. White said he even checked one of the parking lots at Columbia Mall but didn’t see her car. Police found it hours later in another nearby lot.
Flategraff testified how she called 911 when Sjodin didn’t come home that night. Several other concerned friends gathered at her apartment to worry and wait. Danielle Mark, a sorority sister of Sjodin’s, told court how they’d gone out for dinner the previous night following a fun-filled “initiation” week. She tried to call Sjodin several times on the evening she went missing and couldn’t understand why there was no answer.
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 16, 2006
They were begging him to take them to a body—but Alfonso Rodriguez refused to admit guilt despite a crumbling alibi and mounting evidence against him.
“You’re in a position where you could end this investigation...I think you can take us to that girl,” a clearly desperate Dan Ahlquist of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension told Rodriguez in one of three audiotaped interviews played for the jury. “There are lots of things that could make this not so bad. Showing you care for the outcome of the investigation would help. If this were to drag on, it would hurt your Mom. The family of the girl is hurting right now. They’d like to know where she is,” he said. “It would better your position to be the helper, instead of just giving silence.”
The pleas fell on deaf ears as Rodriguez refused to budge from his position that he wasn’t involved in crime. “I didn’t do nothing. What do you want me to admit to something I didn’t do? I’ve never met that girl. I’ve never talked to her. I’ve never seen her until I saw her in the paper,” Rodriguez said during one of his three Nov. 26, 2003 interviews.
Ahlquist described how investigators honed in on Rodriguez after compiling a list of seven known sex offenders living in the immediate vicinity through a national sex offender database. Rodriguez—who had just been released from prison in May 2003 after serving a 23-year sentence for kidnapping and rape—was the first to be interviewed because he had the worst history of all those on the list, said Ahlquist. The interviews began with Rodriguez admitting he was in Grand Forks on the day Sjodin went missing but claiming it was a non-eventful trip. “It was pretty quiet, not too much of anything,” he said. He claimed he did some early afternoon shopping before going to a movie around 4:30 p.m. and being in the theatre until 7 p.m. Sjodin was grabbed at 5 p.m. It hadn’t taken him long to strike.
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 5, 2006
It took less than four hours for jurors to reach their verdict. Alfonso Rodriquez was guilty. But this was just the first legal hurdle. Now prosecutors would begin telling—and graphically showing— jurors why they believed Rodriguez should be sentenced to die. Close-up photos of a bound and battered Dru Sjodin, references to God and accounts of Rodriguez’s criminal past would all be presented as part of the prosecution’s sentencing bid. Jurors would then have to begin deliberating whether Sjodin’s killing meets the eligibility requirements for Rodriguez to be sentenced to death under federal law.
If they ruled it didn’t—as Rodriguez’s lawyers urged—the case would immediately end with Rodriguez being sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. If they ruled it did—as prosecutors strongly urged—jurors would continue sitting for a final phase of the case that would involve additional evidence and argument on the sole point of whether Rodriguez lived or died.
Defence lawyer Richard Ney told jurors they had already given Rodriguez a “death sentence” and said there was no need to inflict further punishment. “Alfonso Rodriguez will die in prison. You’ve already decided that. The thing to decide now is whether that will happen when God decides or when man decides,” Ney said during his opening statement. Prosecutor Drew Wrigley immediately objected to the statement. Erickson told Ney “we’ve had enough” and ordered him to move on. Ney admitted Sjodin’s death was “terrible” but said it didn’t meet the legal definition of being “especially heinous, cruel or depraved.”
Rodriguez had three prior sex-related convictions. Two of his three former victims were called to the witness stand to describe how their lives had suffered as a result of the attacks. The evidence could be used by jurors to weigh Rodriguez’s fate.
One woman, who was 18 at the time she was raped in 1974, said she was still battling depression, anxiety and thoughts of suicide. She described having a breakdown only days earlier which involved barricading herself in a bedroom, pushing furniture up against the door and arming herself with a flute. She also admitted to being admitted to mental health facility last winter. “I was having suicidal thoughts. I was grieving. My brother had died. And Dru Sjodin had died,” she said, fighting back tears. She also described several failed relationships, including two divorces.
The other victim, who was also sexually assaulted by Rodriguez in 1974, described dropping out of college following the attack and many years spent as a transient living in her car and doing odd jobs across the United States. “It seemed like nothing made any sense anymore, in terms of having any hope, faith for the future. All of that seemed broken,” she said. “I was looking for a fresh start. But I found out it was something you couldn’t really run from,” she said. The woman had since turned her life around, got married and found full-time work but said she always remembered what Rodriguez did to her. “It just eats at you. You think about it every second,” she said.
The most explicit evidence came when jurors were shown several close-up photos on large television monitors of Sjodin’s decomposed body as it was found. There were also images of her bound wrists. Sjodin’s friends and family, including both parents, were visibly upset and darted their eyes to avoid seeing the pictures, which prosecutors showed to enhance their argument that Rodriguez deserved to die.
In his final argument, Ney told jurors federal death penalty provisions require certain evidentiary tests must be met in terms of planning. Ney suggested there is no evidence of a cold-blooded killing and that while Rodriguez may have planned to kidnap Sjodin, the murder wasn’t something he anticipated. “This was a crime of immediacy, of impulse. It was very disorganized,” said Ney.
But Wrigley told jurors they should have little doubt about what Rodriguez planned to do. “Don’t let anyone draw your attention away from Alfonso Rodriguez and how he terrorized Dru Sjodin in her final hours,” he said. “The facts regarding his intentions are very clear and very troubling.”
It didn’t take long to reach their decision. Jurors concluded on their second day of deliberations that the case certainly met the requirements for a death penalty sentence. Now the only question left to answer was whether they would dish out the ultimate penalty. There were three final steps jurors would have to consider:
Judge Ralph Erickson told jurors it was not a contest to see whether there are more aggravating factors or mitigating factors, but rather a question of weight. And jurors had to be unanimous on the question of death, or else the sentence would automatically be one of life in prison with no chance of parole.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 11, 2006
Prosecutors went straight for the heart of the jury, with several members reduced to tears as they listened to moving tributes to the young victim. Dru Sjodin’s mother, father, stepfather, boyfriend, roommate and good friend all took the witness stand to offer painful glimpses into how Sjodin’s death impacted them.
“My world exploded,” Sjodin’s mother, Linda Walker, told court. “She was a soft, tender, caring child. She was a wonderful contributor to society. A daughter, a sister, a friend. I was excited for her future.”
Sjodin’s stepfather, Sid Walker, described the raw emotion that followed her devastating death. “Linda would wake up at night, screaming. I felt helpless. All I could do was hold her,” he said.
Allan Sjodin, Dru’s father, said she left a lasting impression on all who knew her. “She was my baby. People would be drawn in by those beautiful blue eyes of hers. Once you met her you didn’t forget her,” he told jurors. “We’ve lost the love of our life. We struggle with every second of every day.”
Sjodin recalled his final meeting with his daughter just days before her death. He had already said goodbye and driven away but was suddenly struck by a “panic attack” after going about eight kilometres. “I turned around, went back and told her I needed to give her another hug,” said Sjodin.
Dru had been dating Chris Lang for several months before her death and the couple seemed destined for a bright future together, court was told. “Her smile was very captivating. She was a kind soul. It was real,” Lang told jurors in his statement. “She treated me like I mattered. She made me feel wonderful about myself.” Lang said he called Sjodin ”my lovable goofball” and felt she could achieve anything she set her mind to. Sjodin was hoping for a future in the arts or photography and often dazzled loved ones with her sketches, paintings and pictures. “She really seized life, every minute. There was so much ahead of her. Everything was blooming,” he said.
Danielle Mark, one of Sjodin’s best friends, recalled how she took great pride in doing volunteer work with underprivileged kids and raising money for diabetes and victims of crime. And Sjodin’s former roommate, Meg Flategraff, told jurors how Linda Walker was a bridesmaid at her recent wedding. “She stood in for Dru because she couldn’t be there,” she said.
Defence lawyers had objected to much of the heart-wrenching testimony being heard and even moved for a mistrial once the prosecution had called all its evidence. Judge Ralph Erickson refused, saying there was no prejudice to Rodriguez.
In his opening statement, prosecutor Drew Wrigley said the death penalty was the only fit punishment for an “intentional, heinous, cruel and tortuous crime.” “The facts in this case cry for justice,” he said.
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 12, 2006
Alfonso Rodriguez’s elderly mother made a tearful plea for her son’s life by painting a glowing picture of a “kind, loving” man who struggled in life because of brain damage caused by exposure to toxic farm chemicals. Dolores Rodriguez showed jurors several pictures of Alfonso as a toddler as she described her fears that he will be sentenced to die. “I would suffer. I’m not in good health,” wept Dolores, who had to use a walker to get to the witness box. “He’s a wonderful son, kind, loving. I’m happy when I talk to him, when I visit him. That’s the only time I feel happy.”
Rodriguez—known as “Tito” to family members—was repeatedly exposed to dangerous pesticides while growing up with his migrant farm family in Minnesota, his mother told court. The family would come up from Mexico every spring to work with sugar beets and lived in a small home with no electricity or running water. Rodriguez was a very sick, undersized child who also faced ugly racial taunts while attending school with several siblings, she said. “The other children used to call them dirty Mexicans and other names. They weren’t happy and used to cry when they had to go to school,” said Dolores. Her son first got in trouble with the law in his early teens when he began making obscene phone calls to women living in the Crookston area, said Dolores. She spoke to police and detailed her son’s troubles, which included severe headaches, a swollen head and tremors.
Dr. Karen Froeming, a clinical neuropsychologist from California who had met with Rodriguez three times in the past year, testified she believed he suffered brain damage as a result of “significant” exposure to farm chemicals as a child. She put Rodriguez through a series of clinical tests and found he suffered from a very low IQ and that his reading, writing and math skills were at an elementary school level. “These impairments have a lot to do with impulse control,” said Froeming, who was retained by defence lawyers as an expert. Froeming told jurors she believed Rodriguez was being truthful. But she admitted being in the dark about additional background information, including how he’d lied to police about being involved in Sjodin’s death while a desperate search for her body was underway. “That would certainly have raised my index of suspicion,” she said in cross- examination.
Defence lawyers called another expert to detail the dangerous side effects of the types of chemicals being used on farms in the 1950s and 1960s, most of which are now banned. Dr. Donald Ecobichon—a Canadian who had taught at several universities and authored three books on toxic chemicals—said young children like Rodriguez would have been most vulnerable. “The toxicity of these chemicals weren’t appreciated in their early use,” he testified. He described several possible impairments from exposure, including poor judgment, anger management and aggressive behaviour. “People can recover somewhat over time. But they’re never back to normal,” said Ecobichon.
Rodriguez turned to drugs and alcohol in his mid-teens and eventually more serious crime landed him in prison for much of his adult life. After being released from prison in May 2003, he returned to Crookston to live with his mother until his arrest later that year for Sjodin’s slaying.
“There were no problems at all [when he came home]. I was happy. I had someone to help me with chores around the house. I was glad he was with me,” Dolores said.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 13, 2006
The seeds were planted early for Alfonso Rodriguez to grow into a serial sex predator and killer. Sylvia D’Angelo repeatedly wiped away tears as she described the horror of watching her little brother get molested inside a church when he was only four years old. They had been staying together in Minnesota at a summer camp for migrant children when Rodriguez had his innocence stolen by a woman who was working with the kids, she said. “I remember there was light coming through [the church] and reflecting off the Virgin Mary as he was [receiving oral sex],” said D’Angelo, who was only six years old at the time.
D’Angelo described another incident later that summer where Rodriguez sacrificed himself in order to stop a young adult man from sexually assaulting her in an outhouse on their rural farm property. “Tito would say ‘leave her alone, I will do it,’” said D’Angelo, adding the sex assaults occurred against her brother on several occasions. He also protected her when they were a bit older from a drunken caretaker who would try to attack her. “He’d try to fondle me but Alfonso wouldn’t let him. He would always hide me under a pile of clothes and say I wasn’t home,” she said.
Dr. Marilyn Hutchinson, a psychologist who had met extensively with Rodriguez over the past year, told jurors this sort of horrific abuse left Rodriguez confused and angry. Those emotions began to manifest themselves in various disturbing ways. Rodriguez was smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol by age nine; was one of several boys to have group sex with a 19-year-old when he was just 11; began using drugs like LSD, along with sniffing lighter fluid, paint and glue by his early teens; and started making obscene phone calls to girls when he was 14. Rodriguez was suffering from “very confused sexuality” and began having fantasies about having sex with strangers, said Hutchinson.
“He became very angry that women had the power to make him aroused. When he gets angry, he either has sexual thoughts or he explodes,” she said. “Remember, he had people who wanted sex from him when he was just a little kid.”
Hutchinson said Rodriguez continued to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his childhood experiences, which also included racial taunting from other children at school. Rodriguez recalled an incident where kids threatened to pour white paint on him because his skin colour was dark. He danced with a young white girl in the fourth grade at a school event, only to watch as the girl’s mother grabbed her away and said “wash your hands because you touched him,” said Hutchinson.
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 2006
A prison official admitted Alfonso Rodriguez’s unusual request to be kept in supervised care beyond his mandatory prison release date was ignored—opening the door for him to kill.
Ted Mickelson, Rodriguez’s former caseworker, told jurors he had serious concerns Rodriguez posed a threat to the public in light of his three prior sex-related convictions, lack of sexual-offender counselling and the fact Rodriguez himself feared being let out into the community. “I really didn’t think he would reoffend, but his history was so severe he shouldn’t be released,” Mickelson testified. Rodriguez had approached him in early 2003 and asked to be sent to a treatment centre through a civil process in which he could be further detained following the expiration of his 23-year sentence in May 2003. “He was experiencing some anxiety, some concerns about being released,” said Mickelson.
Mickelson told Rodriguez that senior Minnesota justice officials had already ruled in late 2001 he wasn’t a candidate to be “civilly committed”—the designation some high-risk US sex offenders receive through the courts if they are still deemed a risk to public safety. Mickelson admitted he thought Rodriguez should be detained beyond May 2003 but never voiced his concerns—or said Rodriguez was asking not to be freed—to prison officials in the hope they would take another look at his status. He also didn’t make officials aware of the fact Rodriguez had also gone back on a promise he’d made to seek sex-offender programming as his release date approached.
“He wasn’t interested in treatment and he refused to meet with the psychologist,” said Mickelson. Instead, Mickelson referred Rodriguez to a prison psychologist to deal with his concerns. “I couldn’t argue with what they had already decided. I didn’t think anything had changed to the point they’d take another look at it,” said Mickelson.
“But they didn’t have this new information. Weren’t there alarm bells going off in your head at this point?” asked defence lawyer Richard Ney.
Mickelson said he would have taken stronger action if Rodriguez had voiced specific thoughts about reoffending. “He never indicated to me or anyone else he had any intention to go out and hurt anybody,” he said. “If he had, I would have been on the phone right away.”
Rodriguez was granted his mandatory release that spring. And Sjodin would quickly become his next victim.
Ruth Johnson, the program director of an inmate community integration program based out of Minneapolis, testified about phone conversations she had with Rodriguez’s concerned sister just months before his release.
“It was the first phone call I’d ever received from a family member saying we don’t want him released from prison,” said Johnson. Sylvia D’Angelo had asked Johnson about potential halfway houses her brother could go to as opposed to being simply cut loose in the community with no conditions. “She said he really felt like he needed to be in a structured environment,” said Johnson. She told D’Angelo she wasn’t aware of any such programs in the Crookston area and took no further action.
Mickelson said Rodriguez also asked him about a halfway house. “I told him he wasn’t eligible,” he said.
Rosa Rodriguez also testified she was concerned—and confused—about her brother’s future pending his release from prison. “I couldn’t understand why someone would want to stay locked up forever,” she said.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 20, 2006
Clutching a grainy black-and-white photo of Alfonso Rodriguez as a toddler, defence lawyer Richard Ney made a passionate final plea to jurors to show the convicted killer some mercy and spare him a death sentence.
Rodriguez was once a sweet, innocent child who wasn’t given a fair shake at life because of several factors beyond his control, said Ney. “We’re dealing with an individual here who wasn’t starting out at an even level. This is not someone who’s functioning as well as you or I. We as a society don’t execute people who are striving to be good,” Ney said in his closing arguments. “You have the capacity to say ‘I can be merciful here.’ Mercy is just something we would give a fellow human being who tried to be good but failed.”
Ney also echoed emotional pleadings to jurors from Rodriguez’s family members. “Sure, you will be killing the man who murdered Dru Sjodin. But you’ll also be putting to death that little boy who was exposed to neurotoxins, who couldn’t keep up in school, who was exposed to racism and poverty, who was hungry, who was sexually abused,” said Ney. “Death here would just break one more mother’s heart, just devastate one more family.”
Several Rodriguez family members burst into tears when Ney talked about the specifics of execution. “The government is asking you to put a living, breathing human being to death. And if that’s what you decide today, make no mistake. That is exactly what will happen. He will be taken from his cell and strapped to a gurney,” said Ney. Ney also took aim at federal justice officials for failing to stop a killer. “The better angels in Alfonso Rodriguez cried out to the people who could stop his release and said ‘Stop.’ But nothing was done. There was a system failure here,” said Ney.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 22, 2006
The verdict was in. Alfonso Rodriguez would lose his right to live. On the third day of deliberations, jurors sentenced Rodriguez to die by lethal injection. The stunning decision was the first of its kind in North Dakota in more than a century.
“Justice has been served,” proclaimed Allan Sjodin in a tearful news conference following the long-awaited end. “For Dru’s sake, this needed to happen.”
Linda Walker thanked everyone who followed the difficult case and she hopes her daughter’s legacy lives on. “I know it wasn’t easy for the jurors. But Dru’s voice was heard today and will hopefully be resounding around the world. We won’t tolerate violence against women, much less our children,” she said.
Prosecutor Drew Wrigley said Rodriguez was getting what he deserves. He also acknowledged the rarity of such a penalty. “And we hope the need doesn’t arise for another 100 [years],” Wrigley said. “But as I told the jury, ours is a gentle area. The people of this region are loving people,” Wrigley said. “It is the defendant’s acts of the last three decades that have brought us to this place, at this time. In the end, we believe this is justice.”
Rodriguez showed no visible reaction to the decision when it was read aloud by the court clerk shortly after 11 a.m. His mother and two sisters burst into tears. One juror was also crying, while the rest had stoic looks on their faces. Sjodin’s family and friends embraced outside court. In the end, it appeared Wrigley’s passionate argument that such a chilling crime cried out for the ultimate punishment was accepted.
“The jury decided this case with the care, dignity and integrity that Dru deserved,” Chris Lang said outside court. “These matters have been decided today. But don’t forget Dru. Celebrate her life as long as yours. She was beautiful, she was wonderful. Keep her in your thoughts forever.”
Alfonso Rodriguez is still alive as of the writing of this book. Like pretty every inmate condemned to death, Rodriguez is exhausting every single avenue of appeal in hopes of finding a court that might overturn his fate. His lawyers have repeatedly pushed the theory that Rodriguez is “mentally retarded” and therefore should be exempt from execution. They have lined up several medical experts to bolster their argument. They are also relying on a decision released by the US Supreme Court in the spring of 2014 that strikes down rigid intelligence tests used to determine if a prisoner has a mental disability.
Prosecutors, of course, take a much different view of Rodriguez’s brain. And they have their own experts who support their position. The legal fight may drag out for a few more years, at various of levels of federal court.
Meanwhile, Dru Sjodin’s legacy lives on. “Dru’s law” came into effect in 2007, requiring convicted child molesters and those convicted of violent sexual offences to be listed on a national online database and face a felony charge if they don’t update their current whereabouts. A memorial website, which includes additional background on the case, the legislation and detailed updates on Rodriguez, can be found at www.drusvoice.com.