Wetback who raped 8-y.o. white girl sentenced to death

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Wetback who raped 8-y.o. White girl sentenced to death

The wetback who raped and murdered an 8-year ...

The wetback who raped and murdered an 8-year-old San Pablo girl 27 years ago should be executed, a jury recommended Friday.



(Photo from: Killer says death row may be best)

Joseph Seferino Cordova, 62, did not budge from his desk in superior court in Martinez as the court clerk read the jury's decision. He looked straight ahead.

"It was the right decision," said deputy district attorney Dara Cashman after the jury spent a day and a half deliberating. "There was no knee-jerk reaction."

Cashman and jurors said that a death sentence was a formal gesture. They acknowledged that Cordova, with diabetes and hepatitis, will die of natural causes on death row before he is executed. Cordova said the same during his trial.

Jurors left the courtroom immediately after Judge Peter Spinetta dismissed them. They exchanged hugs, some choking up as they spoke to one another in the hallway.

The jury convicted the former Richmond man last month in the 1979 killing of Cannie Bullock. He denied committing the crime.

Cannie's mother left her alone at home on Aug. 24, 1979 to go drinking at bars. She returned early the next morning to find her daughter's lifeless body beneath a blanket in the backyard.

Decades passed without prosecutors charging anyone with the crime until 2002 when investigators matched sexual assault DNA from the crime scene to Cordova's. He was serving a prison sentence in Colorado for child molestation.

The jury took about three hours to convict him in January. "Guilt was obvious," said juror Jim Crowson - the sole juror willing to speak about the case. "We knew before we walked in (to the deliberation room)."

At trial, Cordova's attorney said the defendant had slept with Cannie's mother before the murder. Cordova left his sperm on the bedsheets, which may have been transferred to Cannie when she slept in the same sheets.

"I thought that theory was a stretch, to be kind," Cashman said. Cordova's relatives testified that they believed in Cordova's innocence.

His first ex-wife said after Friday's hearing that the wrong man was convicted.

"I still don't believe he did it," said Lupe Snasel.

Cordova had testified that he did not care whether he was sentenced to life without parole, or death row. He will die in prison either way, he told jurors.

Crowson said he was one of the few jurors on the panel who had preferred to recommend life without parole. However, in Cordova's case, either sentence seemed the same because he will die before execution.

"I'm opposed to the death penalty," Crowson said. "I didn't know I was. It was a revelation."

If Spinetta confirms the jury's recommendation, Cordova will join 662 inmates awaiting execution in California. The state has executed 14 people since 1978.

Cashman agreed that Cordova won't be executed but said death row is appropriate for him.

"The death penalty is our ultimate penalty, whether it's a reality or not, it's the worst," she said after the hearing. "He needed to be labeled the worst of the worst. Whether (death) is imposed, that's secondary."

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