Prosecutors Drop 1988 Case Against Condemned Man

Faced with prosecuting a man who already has three death sentences, Arlington County prosecutors yesterday dismissed a capital murder indictment against Alfredo R. Prieto, although they reserved the right to re-charge him if he successfully appeals his convictions.

Prieto, 42, was convicted in Fairfax County in March of killing Warren H. Fulton III and Rachael A. Raver, whom he also raped as she lay dying, in a vacant lot near Reston in December 1988. Not long after killing them, Prieto moved to California, where in September 1990 he raped and murdered 15-year-old Yvette Woodruff.

But before the Fairfax slayings, another similar homicide occurred in Arlington in May 1988. Veronica "Tina" Jefferson was found raped and murdered behind McKinley Elementary School. She was shot to death, as were the other three victims.

For many years, the killings of Jefferson, Raver and Fulton were unsolved. And even after DNA technology showed that the same person killed them all, there was no suspect.

Meanwhile, Prieto had been arrested days after the Woodruff slaying in 1990, and he was convicted and sentenced to death in 1992. He was placed on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

Prieto's DNA, however, was not entered into a national data bank until years later. When Fairfax cold case detectives routinely submitted their DNA from the three unsolved Northern Virginia cases in 2005, it matched Prieto's.

Watching Prieto's appeals slog through the California justice system, then-Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. and Arlington Commonwealth's Attorney Richard E. Trodden elected to indict Prieto for the slayings in Virginia and extradite him. Fairfax decided to try him first.

Arlington prosecutors had been moving forward with a trial set for March.

Yesterday, Arlington Chief Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Theo Stamos asked Chief Arlington Circuit Court Judge William T. Newman Jr. to dismiss the case against Prieto without prejudice, meaning it can be refiled. Defense attorney Jason S. Rucker did not object, and Newman dismissed the murder charge.

Jefferson's mother, Velda Jefferson of Lawton, Okla., said she "wholeheartedly" supported the decision. Jefferson had attended two lengthy trials in Fairfax -- the first a mistrial, the second a conviction and death sentence -- and said: "I'd rather not go through it again. He's guilty. I know he's guilty. We can only kill him one time. I don't want to sit there and look at him all that time."

A death penalty trial is expensive, particularly when the state must pay for the defense's legal fees, expert testimony and witness transportation and housing. Seeking a fourth death sentence for Prieto "just doesn't justify the expense," Stamos said.

Rucker, appointed by the Arlington court along with his father, Denman A. Rucker, to represent Prieto, attended some of the Fairfax trial, had been preparing for the Arlington trial and had been cleared to hire expert witnesses. He did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Jefferson, 24, was an Oklahoma native who had moved to Northern Virginia two years before her death to work as an accountant at the CIA. But she was homesick, her parents told The Washington Post in 2001, and was due to travel home to Lawton later in May 1988 to discuss returning there.

The jury in the second Fairfax trial heard detailed testimony about Jefferson's slaying in the sentencing phase, and Velda Jefferson testified about the impact of her daughter's killing.

Shortly after his sentencing in May, Prieto was moved to the Arlington jail, and proceedings started there. Stamos said attempts to reach a plea agreement with Prieto were unsuccessful.

Prieto is also a suspect in a fifth slaying, the September 1989 death of Manuel F. Sermeno in Prince William County, prosecutors said. He has not been charged in that case.