Convict in East Bay child rape, murder dies on San Quentin death row
SAN QUENTIN — A 76-year-old inmate convicted of the rape and murder of an 8-year-old San Pablo girl died Wednesday, authorities said.
At 4:08 p.m., Joseph S. Cordova was found unresponsive in his single cell at San Quentin Prison, according to a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation statement Wednesday night. Guards called for an ambulance and attempted to provide medical assistance. He was pronounced dead at 4:22 p.m.
Cordova, who had been on death row since May 22, 2007, showed no signs of trauma, and the Marin County coroner will determine a cause of death and COVID-19 status. His next of kin was notified Wednesday evening, the CDCR said.
The coroner and state Office of the Inspector General still are investigating last week’s death of 71-year-old death row inmate Richard E. Stitely, who was found unresponsive in his single-occupant cell. Stitley had been on San Quentin’s death row since 1992 for a rape and murder conviction.
Some San Quentin prisoners have been sent to Bay Area medical centers for treatment in the wake of a COVID-19 outbreak that has sickened more than a thousand prisoners.
Cordova was one of 725 people awaiting execution on California’s Death Row, though Gov. Gavin Newsom effectively has suspended the death penalty here.
Cordova was convicted and sentenced to death five years after a cold DNA hit revealed him to be the suspect in the rape and murder of 8-year-old Cannie Bullock in 1979.
Cordova got away with the crime for more than 20 years but at the time of his arrest was serving a prison sentence in Colorado for a sexual assault on a 12-year-old.
Cannie was murdered on Aug. 24, 1979, after her mother left her alone at her San Pablo home to go to a bar that evening. When she returned in the early morning hours, Cannie was missing, and her blood-smeared robe was on the living room floor.
Cannie’s body was discovered under a blanket in the backyard.
A witness, Cannie’s mother’s roommate, later would testify that Cordova was an acquaintance — known for having a methamphetamine addiction — who would occasionally come by the home.
Judge Peter Spinetta, who handed down the death sentence, said at sentencing that Cordova likely coerced his way into the home since there was no sign of forced entry.
“At no point has Mr. Cordova evinced any remorse for the crime, not only denying that he perpetrated it in the face of all-but-conclusive DNA evidence to the contrary, but not even showing any sympathy for what happened to the child,” Spinetta said, according to a Contra Costa Times story on the sentencing.
Before the sentencing, Cordova said his appeal process will last longer as a death row inmate and that the single cells given to condemned inmates will keep him from mixing with other convicts.
“Death row is a little more safer,” he said at the time, adding that because he has diabetes and hepatitis, he expected to die in prison either way.
The state Supreme Court unanimously upheld Cordova’s conviction in October 2015.