Condemned inmate convicted of killing 9-year-old dies

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — An inmate sentenced to death for strangling a 9-year-old girl in San Bernardino has died of unknown causes while awaiting trial for a second killing, officials said Wednesday.

Dean E. Dunlap, 61, died July 29 at an outside hospital in San Bernardino County and autopsy results were pending, authorities said.

Dunlap was sentenced to death in San Bernardino County in 2006 for the first-degree murder of 9-year-old Sandra Astorga, who he kidnapped as she was walking to school on January 10, 1992.

In 2006, Judge Michael Smith called the case "the most cruel and callous death" he's ever seen.

Prosecutors said DNA linked him to that slaying, and to the 1991 strangling of Cynthia White. He was charged with that killing in 2016 and moved from California’s death row to jail in the county to await trial.