YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — A serial rapist has been resentenced to 46 years in prison for the deaths of two Yakima women after his initial conviction and sentence were overturned.
The Yakima Herald-Republic reports (http://bit.ly/pLSM7o ) that John Bill Fletcher could have faced as little as 34 years under a plea deal reached with prosecutors, but the judge said he deserved more time for preying on vulnerable, drug-addicted women.
Fletcher went on a rape spree in 1987 that included the slayings of 20-year-old Teresa Branscomb and 26-year-old Bertha Cantu.
His original conviction was one of hundreds invalidated by a pair of state Supreme Court decisions in 2001 concerning Washington’s felony murder law.
