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| Robbin Brandley, Saddleback student |
As it turns out, her murder was the first of five that would be committed between 1986 and 1995 by a serial killer, then a marine at Camp Pendleton.
From last week's October 5, 2018 issue of the LA Times:
Serial killer convicted in murders of five Southern California women is sentenced to death
A former Marine convicted of brutally slaying five women in Southern California and three in Illinois over the course of a decade was sentenced to death Friday.
An Orange County Superior Court jury convicted Andrew Urdiales, 54, in May of five counts of special-circumstances murder, which prompted a second phase of the trial to determine whether he should serve life behind bars or face the death penalty.
Jurors ultimately recommended in June that he receive capital punishment for killing Robbin Brandley, Julie McGhee, Maryann Wells, Tammie Erwin and Denise Maney between 1986 and 1995. Judge Gregg Prickett affirmed that recommendation on Friday.The original LA Times article:
Student, 23, Slain in Campus Parking Lot : Woman Found Fatally Stabbed After Leaving Saddleback Concert
Check out Nick Schou's excellent coverage of the case some years back in the OC Weekly (which also appeared in The Best American Crime Reporting 2018) : Just a Random Female
The grisly murder would remain unsolved for 11 years. Witnesses offered inconsistent accounts of events in the hours preceding the crime; Brandley's parents became convinced that someone she knew was responsible for the killing. Then, in April 1997, a man confessed to the murder—and several others. The cop writing down his confession would note that the killer had simply wandered around Mission Viejo until he ended up at a dark parking lot, where he saw a woman walking to her car.
The victim, in the words of the confessed murderer, “could have been anybody.” She “was just a random female.”Robbin's murder inspired 1990 legislation:
1986 Murder in Dark Lot Spurs Campus Lighting Bill
excerpt:
Who Murdered Robbin Brandley
Recently Rebel Girl has thought about Robbin, and not just because the jury conviction of her killer in May of this year brought her name back into the headlines. She came across Robbin's name in a document she received a few weeks ago which closes with a long paragraph that is a litany of 15 former students who variously were convicted of violent behavior and/or were victims of assaults or died under suspicious circumstances. It was a disturbing list, especially if you have a long memory, but perhaps much less so if you don't.
The most high profile one of these was Robbin Brandley.
Rebel Girl imagines that not enough people working in the district now would recall her name or remember the case. After all, it happened a long time ago, 32 years now, about the time the person who wrote the document started attending the college.
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...Reilley said Saddleback College has been at particularly high risk because of its location amid hills where shrubbery can conceal an attacker.
The year before Brandley's death, another Saddleback student was attacked on campus. In April, 1985, a 25-year-old student was abducted from a different parking lot by two men who beat her over the head, stripped her, then dumped her naked, but alive, about six hours later on a freeway off-ramp. Since Brandley's death, at least three other women have reported being sexually assaulted there....The Brandley family maintains this blog about Robbin:
Who Murdered Robbin Brandley
Recently Rebel Girl has thought about Robbin, and not just because the jury conviction of her killer in May of this year brought her name back into the headlines. She came across Robbin's name in a document she received a few weeks ago which closes with a long paragraph that is a litany of 15 former students who variously were convicted of violent behavior and/or were victims of assaults or died under suspicious circumstances. It was a disturbing list, especially if you have a long memory, but perhaps much less so if you don't.
The most high profile one of these was Robbin Brandley.
Rebel Girl imagines that not enough people working in the district now would recall her name or remember the case. After all, it happened a long time ago, 32 years now, about the time the person who wrote the document started attending the college.
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| Robbin Brandley |
11 comments:
I remember the tragedy in a parking lot not yet (as I recall) fully lighted. It was a vector that ended her life and left those close to her in pain. Sometimes justice does occur but at what a terrible price for each of those young women.
What do you mean by vector, Bob?
They just crossed paths and the murderer took the opportunity to kill. He apparently just happened to be on the campus that night when she came out of the Fine Arts building that evening.
Was today's open forum on campus safety at IVC filmed or recorded?
Glenn sent out notes. Check your email.
That email, empty of all soul and any admission of wrongdoing, does not constitute "notes" from the forum; nor do I believe, despite the poor writing of it, that "Glenn sent" it out.
Well, these incidents along with the continued failure to act and the official tone-deaf response (if not downright hostile from the Title IX office) should be brought to attention when accreditation comes around. I recommend that a small group request a meeting and submit a brief report that details this. I think it will be read with respect and interest, especially at this current political moment in the country -and especially in the state.
So is it true IVC received letters complaining about sexual misconduct about two high profile female professors of color written by an obviously disturbed white male and instead of notifying the professors, the college instigated an investigation into their alleged conduct instead? Weeks passed before they were notified?
10:34, no administrator with common sense and integrity would ever do that, unless the intention is to hurt the two female professors.
10:34, yep, it's true.
It's not just that instance, it is a pattern of reckless disregard that puts us all at risk and a stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge not only danger but mistakes.
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