LIFE TERM IMPOSED IN '92 SLAYING.

Byline: Brad A. Greenberg Staff Writer

A registered sex offender was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for murdering an aspiring Northridge model whom he lured into the Angeles National Forest under the guise of a photo shoot.

David Rademaker, 42, of Burbank was convicted last month of the 1992 murder of Kimberly Pandelios, 20, who was married and had a year-old son. Rademaker had been eligible for the death penalty, but a jury of eight men and four women recommended life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Superior Court Judge Michael Johnston affirmed the jury sentence during a hearing in a Los Angeles courtroom. Saying evidence of murder and kidnapping were sufficient, the judge denied a motion filed by the defense for a new trial.

Rademaker, who was arrested in March 2004, intends to appeal.

Pandelios, 20, had arrived in Los Angeles three months before she disappeared Feb. 27, 1992. Her remains were discovered a year later near the Monte Cristo Campground east of Angeles Forest Highway.

Authorities said Pandelios met Rademaker for what she thought was a photo shoot. When she resisted his sexual advances, he raped her and drowned her in a shallow creek, a former girlfriend of the Burbank man testified during the trial.

Pandelios' mother, Magaly Spector of Holmdel, N.J., was satisfied with the sentencing.

``This is very important for justice,'' Spector said in a phone interview. ``The process I would like to see now is his repentance, his acknowledgment that what he did was wrong, and eventually his apology.''

Brad A. Greenberg, [phone]

brad.greenberg(at)dailynews.com