Serial Killer Andrew Urdiales Commits Suicide While On San Quentin Death Row

SAN QUENTIN, CA. (THECOUNT) – Serial killer and former Camp Pendleton Marine, Andrew Urdiales, who was sentenced to the death penalty, is believed to have killed himself at San Quentin State Prison Friday, prison officials said.

Urdiales, 54, was found unresponsive during a security check of his cell late Friday night, according to staff members. Correctional officers performed CPR but Urdiales was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

An autopsy will be performed but his death is being investigated as a suicide, officials said.

An Orange County jury sentenced Urdiales to death one month ago for the murders of five women in San Diego, Mission Viejo, Palm Springs, and Cathedral City in the 1980s and 90s. Urdiales had been previously convicted of killing three Illinois women in the 1990s. source

Urdiales’ victim in San Diego, 31-year-old Maryann Wells, was shot in the head in a deserted industrial complex on Second Ave. in downtown San Diego in 1988. Investigators said Urdiales had sex with Wells then took back the $40 he had paid her. Urdiales left behind a condom that eventually provided a DNA link, implicating him in the case.