Fargo, N.D. (AP) Jurors have sentenced convicted sex offender Alfonso Rodriguez Junior to death for the killing of college student Dru Sjodin (droo shuh-DEEN').

The decision was announced after jurors met for about an hour and a half this morning. Jurors began deliberations on Wednesday afternoon.

The same federal jury convicted Rodriguez last month of kidnapping resulting in Sjodin's death.

The University of North Dakota student from Pequot (PEE'-kwaht) Lakes, Minnesota, disappeared from a Grand Forks shopping mall parking lot in November 2003. Her body was found the following April in a ravine near Crookston, in northwestern Minnesota.

Prosecutors had called for jurors to sentence Rodriquez to death. Defense attorneys had called for a sentence of life in prison, arguing that Rodriguez was sexually abused as a child and has brain damage from exposure to farm chemicals.

It's North Dakota's first death-penalty case in nearly a century.

North Dakota does not have the death penalty but it is allowed in federal cases.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APNP 09-22-06 1131CDT | save this article / add to your favorites list