BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — He went away when she was 4 and she last saw him 16 years ago, but Kascie Truitt says she still loves her grandfather.
“I don’t see any bad in him,” Truitt said Thursday of former deputy David Keith Rogers, convicted in 1988 of killing two prostitutes. She said she’s never seen him do wrong.
District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer asked Truitt if she knew why her grandfather has spent the last 35 years behind bars.
Truitt said she knows. She loves him anyway.
Her testimony came on the 20th day of Rogers’ penalty phase retrial for the murders of Janine Marie Benintende, 20, and Tracie Johnn’a Clark, 15. Clark was three months pregnant at the time of her death.
In 2019, the California Supreme Court overturned Rogers’ death sentence after determining a prosecution witness falsely testified he had sexually assaulted her. The prosecution used the woman’s testimony during its closing argument in the penalty phase.
His murder convictions remain intact.
Next week, the jury will begin deliberating on whether Rogers, 75, should be resentenced to death, or get life without parole.
Rogers’ attorney, Assistant Public Defender Tanya Richard, said she’ll finish calling witnesses Monday, and Judge John W. Lua said he hopes to have attorneys present closing arguments Tuesday, after which the jury gets the case.
Benintende was killed in early 1986 and Clark a year later. Rogers shot them multiple times and then dumped their bodies in the Arvin-Edison canal. He has admitted killing Clark in 1987 but testified he has no recollection of Benintende, whose body was found floating in the canal in 1986.
