By  Seamus McGraw

September 5, 2006

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FARGO, N.D. (Crime Library) —  Two more photos taken during Dru Sjodin's autopsy — pictures that the prosecution hopes will cement an image of Alfonso Rodriguez as a brutal killer who deserves death in the minds of 12 jurors deciding his fate — will be introduced as evidence as the penalty phase of the case begins this week.

Dru Sjodin

The same jury that took less than two hours to convict the 53-year-old sex offender last week of kidnapping the 23-year-old co-ed from a Grand Forks mall in 2003, raping her, murdering her and dumping her body in Minnesota is scheduled to reconvene this morning to begin the second phase of the trial.

Their first task will be to determine whether the crime qualifies for the federal death penalty. And while there is always a slim possibility that the jurors will decide at that point to recommend life imprisonment, few observers doubt that the case will move a full penalty phase in which the panel will review additional evidence to determine whether there are enough mitigating factors to spare Rodriguez' life, or whether he should become the first prisoner in more than 100 years sentenced to death for a crime committed in North Dakota.

Among the evidence that the jury will be asked to consider in the penalty phase are two photographs taken during Dru's autopsy which prosecutors hope will underscore in the jurors' minds the idea that the slaying was "especially heinous, cruel and depraved," a critical requirement that must be met for the jury to opt for death. But U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson has ruled that the jurors will not be permitted to see all the photographs taken during the autopsy, declaring Friday that some of them — displaying images of her body in an advanced state of decomposition — were too graphic and inconclusive to have any impact other than to inflame the jury's prejudices.

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