Mexican pleads not guilty in elder rape, murder

A Mexican national accused of raping and killing an 84- year-old retired psychiatrist at a North County senior housing complex 8 1/2 years ago pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges Thursday.

Alejandro Avalos Fernandez, 33, was extradited to the United States on Tuesday to face charges stemming from the attack on Gladys Conrad at Carlsbad- by-the-Sea retirement village, police reported. Vista Judge Marshall Hockett ordered the defendant held without bail and scheduled a readiness conference for Tuesday. A friend found Conrad’s body the afternoon of Sept. 1, 2001.

She had been sexually assaulted and strangled early that morning or late the previous night by a man who apparently entered her home through an unlocked door or window. There was no indication that the victim had ever been in contact with Fernandez, who worked odd jobs in the area and may have been staying with friends in the vicinity, according to Carlsbad police Lt. Kelly Cain.

Investigators had no solid leads in the case until April 2004, when a national DNA database matched the genetic profile of Conrad’s killer to that of the perpetrator in the attempted rape of a Los Angeles woman in her mid-60s.

Despite that break in the case, the suspect remained unidentified for four more years, until a DNA check conducted after Fernandez was arrested on a narcotics charge in Los Angeles allegedly linked him to the San Diego County rape-murder.

Those results came in shortly after Fernandez failed to show up for a court hearing on the drug charges while out on bail. Carlsbad police obtained a warrant for Fernandez’s arrest in the fall of 2008.

Mexican authorities apprehended him near his Mexico City home the following January, and U.S. officials began the extradition process. Fernandez, who faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted, faces special circumstance allegations of murder during a rape or attempted rape, murder during sodomy and murder during a residential burglary.

Fernandez is also charged with forcible rape and sodomy in connection with Conrad’s murder. Fernandez is charged in the Los Angeles case with torture, assault with intent to commit rape and attempted forcible rape. Prosecutors in Los Angeles agreed to let San Diego prosecutors handle those charges.

City News Service staff wrote and edited this story.

Tags: Alejandro Avalos Fernandez, Gladys Conrad, Gladys Conrad murder, Gladys Conrad rape

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 7:18 pm

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