Gerald Gallego was seriously lacking in a positive father figure. His dad was executed in 1955 for the murder of a prison guard. At this writing his son is quite possibly following in his footsteps.

Gallego began his killings on September 11, 1978, when he raped and shot Rhonda Scheffler, 17, and Kippi Vaught, 16, after his wife Charlene enticed the girls into their car. Charlene Gallego was instrumental in all of her husband's murders, luring the victims with promises of marijuana and alcohol. The ruse proved effective on June 24, 1979, with Branda Judd and Sandra Colley in Reno, Nevada, and on April 24, 1980, when Stacy Redican and Karen Chipman-Twiggs vanished in Sacramento, Claifornia.

The killings would not stop there unfortunately. Lina Aguilar, 21, was pregnant when she was found dead on June 1. Virginia Mochel vanished from the bar she worked at in Sacramento. A couple was next. Craig Miller and Mary Beth Sowers were abducted on November 1, also in Sacramento, and were found dead in seperate locations. The Gallego vehicle was spotted and identified during this latest abduction, however, and the killer and his accomplice wife were arrested in Omaha, Nebraska. Charlene quickly confessed and proved to be the star witness in her husband's trials. Eventually the rapist-murderer Gallego was sentenced to death in California and Nevada. His wife was sentenced to sixteen years and was paroled in 1997.

7/21/2002-Gallego died on July 18 after a losing battle with cancer. Gallego died before the appeals in his death penalty case were exhausted and is yet another resident of death row to not be executed before their natural death. He apparently did not make any last-minute confessions.