Witness’s Memory Fails : D.A. Wins Ruling on Alcala Trial Testimony

The prosecution in the second murder trial of Rodney James Alcala scored a major victory Monday when a judge allowed the jury to hear the first trial testimony of a key witness who now says she cannot remember events surrounding the death of a Huntington Beach girl.

Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin ruled that Dana Crappa is medically unavailable to testify against Alcala, 41, who is charged with the 1979 killing of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe. The girl was last seen leaving a friend’s house to go to a ballet class.

Testimony at 1980 Trial

During the first trial in 1980, Crappa, a former U.S. Forest Service worker, had said that on the day the girl was reported missing, she saw a young, blond girl and a man in the same Los Angeles County mountain area where the Samsoe girl’s body was later found. She gave a close description of Alcala’s car and said the man looked similar to Alcala, although she didn’t positively identify him.

Crappa also testified during that trial that she had later gone back to a ravine near where she had seen the two and found the girl’s mutilated body.

Alcala was convicted and sentenced to die in the gas chamber, but the case was overturned by the state Supreme Court, which ruled that Alcala did not get a fair trial because the judge allowed the prosecution to tell jurors about Alcala’s criminal past.

When Crappa was called to testify last week and told the court she was suffering selective amnesia about what she had seen, Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas Goethals argued that her testimony from the first trial should be presented to the jury.

Denied Defense Request

McCartin agreed and also denied a request by defense attorney John Patrick Dolan to have Crappa examined by a doctor.

Dolan called McCartin’s decision “an errant ruling, to say the least. . . . It’s really a fraud on the jury as far as I’m concerned because her demeanor on the stand was so important.

“They’ve really got us over a barrel,” Dolan said. “But we can’t come unglued here. We’ll just have to do the best job we can. This is a critical case. They’re trying to execute this man.”