Hirschfield, condemned man on death row for 1980 ‘Sweetheart Murders,’ dies in custody; California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. (KION-TV) -- The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Monday that the condemned 75-year-old man, Richard J. Hirschfield, died while in California
Medical Facility (CMF) on Monday.
They said that at 4:50 a.m., Hirschfield was pronounced deceased by a registered nurse in the hospice unit who determined the cause of death to be natural.
Back in 1980, two college students, John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves, were kidnapped and killed; their throats slashed and their bodies dumped in a ravine near Lake Natoma in the Folsom area, reported CBS News in 2013.
"We will never know the gifts that John and Sabrina would have given society, but we do know Hirschfield's contribution, humiliation, pain and death," John's father, Richard, told CBS News.
CBS News reported that the case went unsolved for decades until DNA revealed Hirschfield was connected to the crime at the end of 2012. Then, they said he was convicted before a jury voted for the death penalty.
On February 1, 2013, Hirschfield was admitted to San Quentin's death row for two counts of first-degree murder, use of a firearm with an enhancement of use of a deadly weapon and being a third strike offender, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
