BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) - Prosecutors have waived the death penalty for a California man charged with killing a woman nearly 40 years ago.
The Bakersfield Californian says a judge was told Friday that the Kern County district attorney’s office no longer is seeking death for Prentice Foreman.
A judge last week found that Foreman could be tried for murder but not special circumstances that the killing occurred during commission of rape and burglary.
Foreman, a 60-year-old long-haul trucker from Bakersfield, is charged with killing 18-year-old Dawn Koons, who was found dead from asphyxiation in a bathtub in 1979. She was naked except for a pillowcase over her head and her wrists were tried.
Foreman had lived in the woman’s apartment complex.
New DNA testing led to his arrest in December.
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