Convicted murderer charged with 5 SoCal killings

A man convicted of three murders in Illinois now faces five additional murder charges in Southern California. KPCC’s Susan Valot says Orange County prosecutors filed the case in Santa Ana today.

Andrew Urdiales is sitting on death row in Illinois for killing three women there. In the 1980s, he was a Marine at Camp Pendleton. Twelve years ago, Urdiales confessed to killing five women in Southern California, including Robbin Brandley. In 1986, she was working as an usher at a jazz concert put on by the public radio station at Mission Viejo’s Saddleback College. Brandley was stabbed to death in the parking lot after the show.

Prosecutors say it was the first of five murders carried out by Urdiales in the decade that followed. They say the other four victims were prostitutes. Brandley's parents have insisted for years that Urdiales had an accomplice – a theory investigators say doesn’t hold up. After years of delays, prosecutors will try all five murders as one case in Orange County. But Urdiales won’t be sent west until his death sentence appeal works its way through the courts in Illinois.