This Week in Crime: Death Sentences for '88 Murders, a Fox Mill fire, and the Serial Hamburglar Strikes Again

Alfredo R. Prieto was sentenced to two death sentences for killing a couple in a lot off Hunter Mill Road in 1988.

A Fairfax County jury imposed two death sentences Friday on serial killer Alfredo R. Prieto for the murders of Rachael A. Raver and Warren H. Fulton III near Reston in December 1988.

The jury was told that Prieto, 44, had been sentenced to death for a 1990 rape and murder in California and that he was linked by DNA to a fourth slaying, in Arlington County in May 1988. But jurors were not told that ballistics tests link Prieto to a fifth homicide, in Prince William County in 1989.

Neither did they learn that authorities in California are linking Prieto to four additional slayings there, involving a pair of abductions and double homicides in spring 1990. That would link Prieto to nine killings in slightly more than two years.

This brings to an end proceedings that have run on... let's just say less than speedily since the county's cold case homicide unit linked Prieto to the slayings in 2005, including a mistrial and a ruling from the Virginia Supreme Court. Three times is (apparently) the charm.

Meanwhile, our old new friend the Serial Hamburglar (tm) struck again on November 2, attempting to burgle a half-dozen houses on Riverscape Run in "Great" Falls. It's the first time since October 12th that he is believed to have struck homes in Fairfax County, and this brings to 109 the number of incidents linked to our robbling buddy since August.

A Nov. 1 fire in Fox Mills Estates caused $200,000 in damage to a single-family home. Fire officials say that improperly discarded smoking materials on a screened-in porch on the back of the house caused the fire.

Otherwise, the most exciting thing that's happened in Reston in the past week, according to police, was that an iPhone was stolen from a residence on Bowman Towne Drive. There's not an app for that, but there you go.