1973 killings of 2 California girls won't lead to executions

(AP) — Two men charged with murder in the 1973 shotgun slayings of two young girls can't face the death penalty because it wasn't an option when the girls were sexually assaulted and killed, a California prosecutor said.

Patterson said he intends to waive extradition back to California to face charges in the deaths.

The girls' mothers first reported them missing as runaways on Nov. 12, 1973, after they failed to return home overnight from a shopping trip to a mall in nearby Linda.

The Yuba County Sheriff's Department was notified a few hours later that their bodies had been found along a dirt road in a wooded area near Marysville, north of Sacramento, where they had been shot at close range.

The case went cold decades ago, Yuba County authorities said, until a state forensics lab matched DNA from the two suspects to semen found on Derryberry.