A registered sex offender was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Tuesday for the 1992 kidnapping and murder of an aspiring Northridge model.
David Rademaker, 42, of Burbank lured Kimberly Pandelios into the Angeles National Forest on the premise of a photo shoot, only to rape her and drown her in a shallow creek, prosecutors argued during a monthlong trial.
The jury of eight men and four women decided Rademaker didn’t deserve the death penalty. He was eligible for death because he was charged with the special circumstance of kidnapping.
“We’re absolutely thrilled,” said defense attorney Chad Calabria. “We think it was absolutely the right verdict. We are disappointed they found him guilty in the first place. But certainly they came to the right conclusion here.”
Pandelios’ mother said she was satisfied with Tuesday’s verdict.
“At some point I was going for the death penalty,” Magaly Spector said, “but it is OK with me.”
Pandelios, 20, was last seen Feb. 27, 1992, after telling her husband she was headed to model for a photographer named Paul. Prosecutors argued that Rademaker used aliases, among them Paul, to lure women for sexual liaisons.
His ruse turned deadly when Pandelios, a newlywed and the mother of a 13-month-old son, refused Rademaker’s advances after she met him near the Monte Cristo Campground, about 15 miles north of La Caada Flintridge.
After she was raped, Pandelios begged for her life, promising Rademaker she wouldn’t report him if he let her go. He bragged years later that he then drowned her in a creek, according to trial testimony of an ex-girlfriend.
“My hope is that one day, Dave Rademaker (will) write me a letter of repentance,” Spector said. “Otherwise he is a waste of a human being. He is an animal driven by instinct, with no feelings.”
Brad A. Greenberg, (818) 713-3634
