A convicted serial killer who hates women was found guilty Wednesday of murdering five women in the late 80’s and early 90’s across Southern California.
53-year-old Andrew Urdiales, an ex-Marine, was previously convicted of killing three women in Illinois in 2002 and 2004, reports ABC 10 News.
The killer’s Wednesday conviction in the slayings of women from Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties brings his total number of victims to eight.
In Illinois, Urdiales was sentenced to death twice, but those sentences were commuted to life in prison after capital punishment was abolished in the state in 2011. However, prosecutors in Orange County said in a press release they will pursue the death penalty for the California killings.
Jurors in Orange County convicted Urdiales of five counts of first-degree murder with enhancements.
In 1986, the serial killer was reportedly looking for a random person to kill when he came upon his first victim in California, 23-year-old Robbin Brandley, a student at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo. The woman was walking back to her vehicle after her shift as a volunteer usher at an on-campus piano concert when Urdiales stabbed her 41 times, according to court proceedings.
The other four victims in Southern California were prostitutes who Urdiales picked up before subsequently raping and killing them, reports the Associated Press.
In 1996, a break came when Indiana authorities stopped Urdiales’ truck and discovered a revolver in his vehicle that he was carrying illegally, prosecutors said. The following year, detectives matched the weapon to the one used to kill three Illinois prostitutes.
Urdiales then told Chicago detectives that they may want to question him regarding the California slayings. He then recounted graphic details of the case that police said only the killer would know.
Following trials in California, the serial killer was extradited to California.
The precise motivation for the killing spree may never be known. A 2002 report by the Northwest Indiana Times said Urdiales was neglected by his parents, having grown up in a “violent, abusive home.” Witnesses said at his Illinois murder trial that the killer was “molested by his sister and suffered broken bones and falls requiring stitches,” according to the media outlet.
At his most recent trial in California, Urdiales’ defense attorneys argued that he was unable to control his anger due to childhood trauma and and suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome.
[Featured image: Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas]
