By Seamus McGraw
September 22, 2006
FARGO, N.D. (Crime Library) — In the end, his tale of a life of poverty and abuse, of potentially mind altering exposure to toxic chemicals as a child in the fields were not enough to save him. Even his claim that he was himself afraid of what he might do when released from a quarter century imprisonment and his wish that he remain in custody could not spare Alfonso Rodriguez from becoming the first person in a century sentenced to death in North Dakota.
On Friday, after less than a day and half of deliberations, a federal jury in Fargo sentenced the 53-year-old Minnesota man to death for the Nov. 22, 2003 kidnapping, rape and slaying of young Dru Sjodin. The body of the University of North Dakota co-ed whom he abducted from a mall, was recovered weeks later in a ditch in Crookston, MN, not far from the home Rodriguez shared with his mother.
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| Dru Sjodin |
The verdict makes Rodriguez, a convicted sex offender with a long history of brutality against women, the first prisoner sentenced to die for a crime committed in North Dakota or Minnesota in decades. Both states have banned capital punishment.
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| Alfonzo Rodriguez, Jr. |
But because the attack on Dru crossed state lines and because it involved kidnapping, federal authorities claimed jurisdiction. The federal government can impose the death penalty in any jurisdiction.
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