Court rejects request by convicted murderer and sex offender responsible for Dru Sjodin's death

A federal appeals court has denied a rehearing for a Minnesota man sentenced to death for killing a University of North Dakota student.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. of Crookston, Minn., a convicted sex offender, was found guilty in 2006 of killing 22-year-old Dru Sjodin of Pequot Lakes, Minn. She was attending UND when she was abducted from the Columbia Mall parking lot.

After a 12-week trial process, a 12-member jury found Rodriguez guilty in the brutal murder and sexual assault of Sjodin, and sentenced him to death. The federal death sentence is the only one of its kind in North Dakota history.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September affirmed the death sentence against Rodriguez.

Rodriguez, now 56, asked for a new hearing in front of the entire circuit court, which was denied in an order released Thursday.

He is an inmate at a high-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., where federal inmates are housed until their federal death sentences can be carried out.

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