FARGO, N.D. — A federal judge has signed off on an order taking a Minnesota man off Death Row. The order means that Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. instead will serve a life term for the 2007 kidnapping, rape and murder of a University of North Dakota student. The change in Rodriguez’ status is consistent with the abolition of federal capital punishment under President Biden. Rodriguez was convicted in 2003 for kidnapping 22-year-old Dru Kathrina Sjodin from a Grand Forks shopping mall, for sexually assaulting her, for cutting her throat, and for leaving her to die in a ravine near Crookston, in northwest Minnesota. Her body was found when the snow melted six months later.
Rodriguez. Now age 63. From Crookston. Will be moved out of the federal Terre Haute, Indiana, prison, where death penalty inmates are kept.