Jury recommends death sentence for man who killed and robbed two San Bernardino women – San Bernardino Sun

A Supreme Court jury on Friday, May 10, recommended that a registered sex offender be sentenced to death for murdering and robbing two women in their San Bernardino homes more than a decade ago.

The jury’s decision on Jerome Anthony Rogers, 68, was announced in a quiet courtroom at the San Bernardino Justice Center after a two-month trial in which he was convicted. Rogers had pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Judge J. David Mazurek can follow the jury’s recommendation or impose a life sentence without parole. Sentencing was scheduled for July 19.

Rogers was a neighborhood handyman who was accused of strangling Wanda Lee Paulin, 86, on North Mountain View Avenue on Dec. 12, 2010, and Mary Beth Blaskey, 76, on Nov. 14, 2012, at her home on Fremontia Drive .

Neither Rogers nor any of Paulin and Blaskey’s family members showed any noticeable reaction as the clerk read the sentencing recommendations. San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson sat among the victims’ family members.

Anderson declined to comment on the case.

“It’s their time,” Anderson said, pointing to family members in the hallway after the courtroom emptied.

Among them was Paulin’s 72-year-old daughter Joanne Ballard of San Bernardino.

“I am very pleased that the jury has decided he is guilty,” she said. “And I believe that the most cruel and heinous crimes committed against older women deserve the harshest punishment our system allows.”

She said she is grateful to prosecutors, court staff and San Bernardino police investigators.

Some victims’ family members hugged prosecutors after the recommendations were announced.

Paulin was bookkeeper at First Presbyterian Church in San Bernardino — which Blaskey attended — for 27 years, Ballard said. Blaskey knew Paulin, said a Blaskey relative who attended the jury’s decision.

“The most important thing to my mother was her family, my father and us, her church and her church family,” Ballard said.

Blaskey was a retired employee and secretary of the San Bernardino City Unified School District. She worked for the district from 1994 to 2006. Blaskey continued to work as an office substitute at San Gorgonio High and other schools until about two weeks before her death.

Many educators knew her as a woman who responded to every assignment: “No problem.”

After less than a day of deliberations, Rogers was convicted April 23 of two counts of murder and one count of sexual assault. The jury found true three special circumstance allegations that qualified Rogers for the death penalty: committing a robbery during a murder, being convicted of multiple murders, and using torture during a murder.

The jury’s decision on punishment also took about a day.

Rogers was charged with Blaskey’s murder and sexual assault in 2013. Her home had been ransacked and her 2001 Lexus was missing. Several other items believed to have been taken from her home were found at a home where Rogers was sleeping, authorities said.

Rogers was linked to the crime through DNA evidence.

While Rogers was in prison, he mentioned to investigators that he knew Paulin and that she had been killed. Paulin’s apartment had been searched and rings were taken from her fingers. Tipsters reported seeing Rogers in December 2012, around the time of the second murder, with items they believed were out of place for him.

He was also linked to Paulin’s murder through DNA evidence, police said. In January 2015, a second case was filed that included the previous charges related to the Blaskey murder.

Rogers’ attorney, Daniel J. Mangan, a court-appointed attorney, questioned the DNA evidence in an interview Friday. When Rogers was arrested, police said they initially had 30 suspects, including Rogers.

“Some of the items (in the homes) were not tested,” Mangan said. “We don’t know whose DNA was on them. We feel there were more people involved who were never arrested or charged.”

In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executing prisoners in the state. No one has been executed in California since 2006. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, there were 638 inmates on death row as of May 6.