Two California men indicted for killing, raping four women

[October 03, 2014]  (Reuters) - Two southern California men were indicted on Thursday for the rape and murder of four women, the Orange County District Attorney's office said, in crimes that came to light when the body of one of the victims was found at a recycling center.

Franc Cano, 28, and Steven Dean Gordon, 45, were both registered sex offenders and had been wearing GPS tracking devices, which allowed investigators using positioning data to link them to the crimes, police said.

They face four counts of murder with special circumstances for the kidnapping and multiple killings, and four counts of forcible rape, the District Attorney's office said.

The two are slated to be arraigned on Friday morning at a Santa Ana courthouse.

If convicted, they face a minimum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole and are eligible for the death penalty, the attorney's office said.
 

The investigation began after employees at a recycling facility in Anaheim, which is about 25 miles (40 km) south of Los Angeles and is the city where both suspects are from, found the body of a woman on a conveyor belt, police said.

The victim came from Oklahoma. Police said the four women, all of them in the 20s and 30s, were "engaged in prostitution" at the time they were killed.

Cano and Gordon were arrested and charged with the murders in April and have been in jail ever since, prison records show. They pleaded not guilty to the crimes then, court records show.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Crispian Balmer)

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