Execution Date Set for Burbank Killer

SACRAMENTO — A Pasadena man convicted of killing two employees of a Burbank Taco Bell in 1983 has been ordered executed at San Quentin State Prison on Jan. 26, prison officials said Tuesday.

If the execution is carried out, he would be only the third inmate to be put to death since California reinstated the death penalty in 1977.

A court order set the date for William Kirkpatrick Jr., 35, who was sentenced to death in 1984, according to an announcement by the California Department of Corrections.

Kirkpatrick entered the Taco Bell, where he had previously worked, on Sept. 17, 1983, and robbed the restaurant of $650. Then he pushed two workers--a 27-year-old and a 16-year-old high school student--into a storage closet and shot them both execution-style in the back of the head.

Since the reinstatement of the death penalty 19 years ago, 491 inmates have been sentenced to die in California, but the vast majority live through years of lengthy appeals. Eleven of those on Death Row have died of natural causes, and eight others have committed suicide.

The last prisoner to be executed was David Edwin Mason in August 1993, after he refused an appeal. The first to be executed since 1977 was Robert Alton Harris, who confessed numerous times to killing two teenage San Diego boys in 1978, and was put to death in April 1992. Harris’ execution came after 13 years of appeals.