SANTA ANA, Calif., Aug. 5 (UPI) -- A man sentenced to death for killing three prostitutes in Illinois has been charged with killing five California women, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Andrew Urdiales, 45, was linked to the slaying of the Southern California women through DNA evidence after his conviction for the three Illinois deaths, Orange County prosecutors said.
The Orange County district attorney's office said the California women -- all but one of them prostitutes -- were shot or stabbed in Orange, Riverside or San Diego counties between 1986 and 1995.
Four of the victims were killed while Urdiales was serving in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1984 to 1991, prosecutors said, and he allegedly killed the fifth near Palm Springs in 1996 while he was on vacation.
Urdiales was arrested in Hammond, Ind., in 1996 while loitering in an area known for prostitution, prosecutors said. A gun found in his vehicle was linked through ballistics testing to the 1996 shooting deaths of three women in Cook and Livingston counties in Illinois.
Orange County prosecutors said Urdiales is not likely to be extradited until he completes appeals of his death sentence in Illinois.
