Once called a “model candidate” for capital punishment, Earl Lloyd Jackson was sentenced to death on March 19, 1979 for beating two elderly widows to death and raping one with a wine bottle in a Long Beach apartment complex.

Forty years later, Jackson, 61, is one of the longest-serving inmates on California’s Death Row. He’s one of at least 17 inmates with ties to Long Beach and one of more than 700 inmates whose futures are now unclear after Gov. Gavin Newsom this week placed a moratorium on executions.

In a notoriously slow system held up in appeals, California hasn’t put anyone to death since 2006 and has only executed 13 people since 1978.

Now, with the death penalty suspended, voters may have another chance to decide whether to end it permanently.

Here is a list of death row inmates connected to Long Beach.

David Ponce 

(Source: LBPD)

Age: 38

In one of Long Beach’s worst mass killings, Ponce, a Watts gang member, shot five people in a Long Beach homeless camp near the 405 freeway on Nov. 1, 2008, in what prosecutors described as a gang dispute. He later shot a sixth person. His accomplice, 32-year-old Max Rafael, was sentenced to life in prison.

Sentenced in February 2018

Daniel Wozniak

Age: 34

In a particularly bizarre crime, Wozniak, a local theater actor, killed his Army veteran friend Sam Herr, 26, and Herr’s friend Juri Kibuishi, 23, in attempt to steal money to fund his honeymoon. Wozniak, a Long Beach native who attended Wilson High School, beheaded Herr at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base and dumped his head in El Dorado Park. He then killed Kibuishi in Herr’s Costa Mesa apartment in an effort to throw police off his trail. An Orange County jury took just over an hour to sentence him to death.

Sentenced in September 2016

Santiago Martinez Jr.

(Source: http://santiagomartinezus.blogspot.com)

Age: 37

Born and raised in Long Beach, Martinez, a gang member, was sentenced to death for killing two girlfriends within two weeks in 2003. He first stabbed 28-year-old Christina Wilkerson in a jealous rage and later killed Myra Orozco, 24, for refusing to help him hide Wilkerson’s body. Martinez stabbed Orozco more than 30 times and then ran over her twice in a car. At the time of the crimes, he was on parole for sexually assaulting a disabled person. A Long Beach judge called him “the face of evil” as she handed down his death sentence.

Sentenced in November 2009

Frank Christopher Gonzalez

Age: 38

Gonzalez and his accomplice, Justin Ashley Flint, were riding bikes in the 2900 block of Eucalyptus Avenue looking for someone to rob on the morning of March 2006 when they spotted off-duty Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Maria Cecilia Rosa, who was preparing to head to work. Rosa was loading things in her trunk when the pair demanded her wallet and then shot her. A newspaper deliveryman later found her body.

Sentenced in May 2008

Santiago Pineda

Age: 37

In 2002, Pineda robbed Rafael Sanchez in Long Beach and then pushed him out of his car and ran him over. While in jail awaiting trial for Sanchez’s death, Pineda slipped out of his jail cell and killed fellow inmate Raul Tinajero, who had witnessed the crime and was set to testify against him. Pineda flashed a gang sign as he was sentenced to death in 2007. 

Sentenced in February 2007

• Warren Hardy and Kevin Pearson  

Ages: 42 and 49

Three days after Christmas in 1998, Hardy and Pearson raped and killed 43-year-old Penny Sigler as she walked home. Caltrans workers later found her body on a 405 freeway embankment near Wardlow Road and Long Beach Boulevard. Last month, the California Supreme Court reversed a death sentence for a third accomplice, Jamelle Edward Armstrong, after ruling that multiple prospective jurors were improperly excused.

Sentenced: Jan. 23, 2003

Ramon Sandoval Jr.

Age: 37

In April 2000, Sandoval ambushed two Long Beach police officers and sprayed his assault rifle, killing Officer Daryle Black and wounding his partner. Black, who had been with the department for six years, was the first Long Beach officer to be shot and killed on duty in 25 years. A stray bullet also hit a pregnant woman, lodging inches away from her fetus.

Sentenced in May 9, 2003

Calvin Dion Chism

Age: 41

Chism fatally shot Eddie’s Liquor Store clerk Richard Moon during an attempted robbery in June 1997. The killing occurred a month after he robbed a Compton market with the same handgun. The state Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 2014, rejecting allegations of racial bias in the jury selection process.

Sentenced in October 2001

Bruce Millsap

Age: 52

A gang ringleader, Millsap received eight death sentences and 200 years in prison for a killing spree in the mid-1990s that included the robbery and murder of an armored truck guard outside of a bank in Long Beach and other robbery-related murders in Los Angeles County.

Sentenced in February 2000

Andre Wilson

Age: 48

Wilson in July 1996 shot 38-year-old store clerk Sary San on her first day as a cashier at the former Seng Heng Market on Anaheim Street. The attempted robbery and fatal shooting was captured on the market’s surveillance camera.

Sentenced in May 1998

Kiongozi Jones

Age: 50

This Long Beach gang member was convicted of killing two people — an alleged gang rival, Mario Lopez, 19, and a bystander, Angel Villa, 35 — in a Central Long Beach shooting spree in 1996. His crimes highlighted the peak of gang violence in the city in the 1990s.

Sentenced in November 1998

Darrell Lomax

(Source: www.nodeathpenalty.org/get-the-facts/story-injustice-darrell-lomax)

Age: 48

In August 1994, Lomax shot and killed 52-year-old store clerk Nasser Akbar in a robbery at the P&B Liquor Store on Seventh Street. Lomax has maintained his innocence, alleging, among other claims, that witnesses gave false testimony in return for favorable outcomes in their own criminal cases.

Sentenced in October 1996

Randy Kraft

(Source: CDC)

Age: 73

Kraft, a notorious serial killer, known the Scorecard Killer and the Southern California Strangler killed at least 16 young men between 1972 and 1983, including in Long Beach and Orange County. In all, he is believed to have raped and killed 51 other boys and young men.

Sentenced in November 1989

Paul Tuilaepa

(Source: CDC)

Age: 53

In October 1986, Tuilaepa shot four men, one fatally, with a .22-caliber rifle in a robbery at the former Wander Inn Bar in Long Beach during a Monday Night Football event. Eight surviving victims testified against him.

Sentenced in September 1987 

Andre Burton

Age: 56

In February 1983, Burton, in a string of robberies, shot Long Beach convenience store owner Anwar Khwaja twice in the forehead and then shot and killed his mother, Gulshakar Khwaja, as she rushed to help her wounded son. Anwar Khwaja survived.

Sentenced in June 1985

Earl Lloyd Jackson

Age: 62

In 1977, Jackson burglarized the apartments of two elderly neighbors — Vernita Curtis, 83, and Gladys Ott, 90 – who lived in the same building on East 16th Street. Curtis was badly beaten and died in the hospital days later. Ott, her next door neighbor, was also beaten to death and raped with a wine bottle that had Jackson’s fingerprints.

* City News Service contributed to this report.