By Bob Walsh
In December of 1978, CHP Officers Roy Blecher, 50, and William Freeman, 35, were shot to death along I-80 in West Sacramento. They were shot with their own guns.
Luis Rodriguez, 23, and his girlfriend Margaret Klaess, 19, were convicted of the murders. Klaess rolled over on Rodriguez and got three years. Rodriguez, a career criminal, was sentenced to death. Rodriguez continued to deny his guilt.
After many appeals the original trial judge, Joseph Karesh, reduced Rodriguez’s sentence to life, asserting he had lingering doubts about the man’s guilt. (Isn’t that for the jury to decide?) That state appealed that ruling without success.
Rodriguez, now 60, croaked last week of natural causes at a hospital in Chula Vista. He had been doing his time at the state prison in San Diego.
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