Q: In the late '80s, a guy went on a crime spree that ended when he killed a Sacramento Police Department technician. What happened to this killer? - Anonymous, Sacramento
A: Manuel Machado Alvarez, now 50, has been on death row since he was sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder of Allen Ray Birkman, 35, Bee reports and records show.
Birkman, who earned Boy Scout honors and a City Council commendation, worked at the Sacramento Police Department as an identification technician.
Alvarez stabbed Birkman to death on May 17, 1987, in a shopping center near Mack Road and Highway 99 after Birkman refused to turn over $60 he had just withdrawn from an ATM.
Earlier, Alvarez had raped a prostitute and stole a car. He received an additional 17 years and 8 months for those crimes and the robbery of Birkman.
Alvarez had served four years in prison for a 1982 conviction for voluntary manslaughter.
In passing judgment, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Darrel W. Lewis said Alvarez had chosen "to impose death and violence on other individuals." The judge said there was no place for Alvarez in society. "He will not be an asset, even to the prison system," Lewis said.
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