North Dakota

Federal charges filed in student’s slaying

A federal grand jury on Wednesday charged a convicted sex offender in the kidnapping and death of University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 51, appeared in federal court and pleaded not guilty to a charge of kidnapping, resulting in death. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

The complaint says the crime involved “torture and serious physical abuse.” Rodriguez “held her for purposes of sexually assaulting her.”

Neither North Dakota, where Sjodin disappeared in November, nor Minnesota, where her body was found last month, has the death penalty.

Rodriguez, of Crookston, Minn., was arrested in December and has been in custody since on a state kidnapping charge.

The trial was set for July 19.

California

Suspect arrested in ’99 slaying of child

An imprisoned kidnapper has been arrested in the 1999 murder of a 7-year-old girl, more than three years after her skull was found in the Santa Cruz mountains, authorities said.

Curtis Dean Anderson, a suspect after admitting in jailhouse interviews that he kidnapped Xiana Fairchild, will be charged with murder, kidnapping and child molestation, according to the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office.

The Vallejo girl was reported missing Dec. 9, 1999, by her mother, Antoinette Robinson. Xiana, born while her mother was in prison for auto theft, disappeared six months after Robinson reclaimed her.

Police long suspected Anderson, a former cab driver with a lengthy criminal record, after he was sentenced to 251 years in prison in 2000 for kidnapping an 8-year-old girl who eventually escaped.