ROGERS CONVICTED IN '95 STRANGULATION; JURY TO DELIBERATE BETWEEN DEATH, LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE.

Byline: Douglas Haberman Staff Writer

After deliberating less than two days, a jury convicted Glen Edward Rogers of first-degree murder Tuesday in the 1995 strangulation of Sandra Gallagher, whom he met in a Van Nuys bar.

Because Rogers was convicted for a murder in Florida and is on Death Row there, his conviction Tuesday qualifies him for the death penalty in California. The penalty phase of the trial began Tuesday.

Rogers showed no emotion when a court clerk read the verdict. But before the verdict, Rogers smiled at a white-haired woman that Deputy Public Defender Jim Coady said is Rogers' mother, Edna Rogers of Hamilton, Ohio. She wiped tears from her eyes and later left the courtroom refusing to comment.

Gallagher's mother, Jan Baxter, also left the courtroom crying and wouldn't discuss the conviction.

Gallagher, a 33-year-old mother of three was at McRed's Cocktail Lounge celebrating a lottery win of $1,250 that night of Sept. 28, 1995.

The jury of eight women and four men, as well as six alternate jurors, began hearing testimony on whether Rogers should receive the death penalty or life in prison without possibility of parole. Baxter and other relatives of Gallagher are expected to testify.

``At the end of this case, I'm going to argue that the only proper penalty for a man who's taken all these lives is the most severe penalty we have in this state,'' Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Pat Dixon told the jury.

Coady postponed his opening statement, but he questioned witnesses about Rogers' consumption of alcohol.

The prosecution said Rogers' killing of Gallagher was the start of a murder spree that took the lives of three other women that Rogers met while drinking.

He was convicted in Florida for the stabbing death of 34-year-old Tina Marie Cribbs, in Tampa, Fla. in early November 1995. He is accused of stabbing to death Linda Price, 34, in an apartment they were sharing in Jackson, Miss. on Oct. 31, 1995. He is also suspected of stabbing to death Andy Lou Sutton, 37, in her Bossier City, La. apartment on Nov. 9, 1995.

A nationwide manhunt ended with his arrest in 1995 in Kentucky.

During the seven-day trial downtown, Rogers adamantly denied killing Gallagher. He claimed it was a business associate and friend, Istvan ``Steve'' Kele, who killed Gallagher after a night of drinking that began with Rogers meeting Gallagher at McRed's bar in Van Nuys.

Rogers claimed he only helped dispose of Gallagher's body by burning it in her pickup truck.

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Photo: Glen Edward Rogers

Eligible for the death penalty