By  Seamus McGraw

September 6, 2006

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FARGO, N.D. (Crime Library) —  Alfonzo Rodriguez, who has already spent nearly half his life behind bars, will die in prison. About that, there is no question.

But whether that death will come naturally, the result of advancing age, bad health or bad luck, or whether it will come at the end of a syringe wielded by doctors employed by the government to administer the ultimate sanction is a question 12 jurors — along with four alternates — could begin considering as early as today.

Alfonzo Rodriguez, Jr.

The same federal jury that convicted Rodriguez last week on charges that he kidnapped, raped and murdered co-ed Dru Sjodin from a Grand Forks, N.D., mall in 2003, then dumped her body in a remote area of Minnesota not far from his home is poised to begin deliberating, perhaps this afternoon, on the first key question that could lead to Rodriguez' execution; is the case death-eligible.

Dru Sjodin

To that end, prosecutors on Tuesday worked to convince the jury that there are enough aggravating factors in the case to warrant the death penalty, a decision that would make Rodriguez the first person executed for a crime committed in North Dakota in more than a century.

To bolster their case, they presented testimony from two of Rodriguez' past victims, woman who had been attacked by Rodriguez 30 years ago, before his last victim was even born, and who, unlike Dru, managed to escape with their lives.

Their testimony was, according to published reports, both emotional and compelling. One of the victims, who had survived a 1974 attack at Rodriguez' hands, told jurors that the attack had left her battling emotional problems for decades and that she had faced depression, anxiety and panic attacks. As recently as this past weekend, she told the jurors, the ghosts of that long-ago attack had sent her fleeing into her bedroom, where she cowered behind a locked door, according to a report in the newspaper, the Pioneer Press.

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