![]() attorney for the District of North Dakota, told The Associated Press that federal prosecutors are weighing their options following the judge’s decision to overturn that sentence. ![]() “This is the first time since 1914 that any judge has been confronted with a death penalty sentence in North Dakota or Minnesota,” Erickson said, according to The New York Times. His was also the first death sentence handed down in the state in close to 100 years.Įrickson told Rodriguez during his 2007 sentencing that the killer’s “senseless and horrendous” actions had forced the judge and jurors to make a difficult decision. Rodriguez’s case was the first and only federal death penalty case in North Dakota history. A missing person flier, right, is posted at an entrance to the mall shortly after the crime. 22, 2003, from the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks. ![]() The move from state court, along with the fact that Sjodin was slain during an abduction, allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty, which had been previously banned in North Dakota and Minnesota courts.ĭru Sjodin murder: Police and volunteers spent months searching, left, for University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin, 22, after she was abducted Nov. The sheath was sold as a pair with a folding knife - the same knife found hidden in Rodriguez’s trunk, the court records showed.īecause Rodriguez had taken Sjodin across state lines before killing her, he was charged in federal court. The affidavit, which the news network obtained, stated that the knife sheath was traced to the only local hardware store that sold it. The knife used to kill Sjodin matched a knife sheath found near Sjodin’s car, which was parked outside J.C. Hair matching Rodriguez’s DNA was found on Sjodin’s coat. 22, 2003, abduction and murder in Grand Forks. A federal judge has overturned Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.’s death sentence in Sjodin's brutal Nov. “The blood did come back (and) it was a DNA match with Dru from the DNA taken from Dru’s toothbrush,” then-Grand Forks County Sheriff Dan Hill told CNN in 2003.ĭru Sjodin murder: Slain University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin is pictured. They also found blood on a rear window and on the car’s seats. The former convict allowed investigators to search his 2002 Mercury Sable, where they found a knife hidden in the trunk. There was just one problem: The film he said he’d seen was not playing at any theater in Grand Forks at the time, CNN reported. He admitted to detectives that he’d been at the mall where she worked, but said he was watching a movie at the mall’s theater. Rodriguez became a suspect four days into the investigation after police received a tip stating he’d been in Grand Forks the day Sjodin vanished, according to media reports. Her throat was also cut, and a rope and the remnants of a plastic grocery bag remained around her neck when her body was found. Sjodin’s autopsy determined she had been beaten, stabbed and possibly suffocated to death. Sjodin’s black loafer was later found under a bridge leading into the small city. The final phone call from Sjodin’s phone was made from a rest stop near Crookston, according to an affidavit in the murder case. Rodriguez, who had expressed anxiety and fear of living back in society, was released anyway, even after his own family expressed concern to Minnesota Department of Corrections officials. He was classified as a Level 3 sex offender, the most dangerous category, court records show. Prior to his release, he had served 23 years in prison for multiple rapes and an attempted rape. Rodriguez, a registered sex offender released from prison six months before the murder, lived in Crookston with his mother at the time of Sjodin’s abduction. Sjodin’s body was found the following April about 30 miles away, near Crookston, Minnesota, after the spring sunshine had begun to thaw the snowy ditch where she had been dumped. 22, 2003, from outside a mall in Grand Forks, N.D. ![]() Dru Sjodin murder: Deputies stand guard near the spot where University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin's body was found April 17, 2004, in a ditch near Crookston, Minn. ![]()
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