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Facts of the Crime:
Devout Christians and young parents, John Rainwater, 25, and wife Lori, 22, were managing a 14-unit lodge in Atascadero when a parolee from the Utah prison system broke into their home. He had been at the door of the Rainwater apartment a few days before pretending to be interested in a rental. Now it was late on February 4, 1987 and rent money was due to come in. On parole for attempted murder, robbery and kidnapping the convict had been out for two months. Before driving to the lodge on El Camino Real he had bought duct tape at Kmart. He was armed with a .38 caliber pistol and likely had an accomplice.
Over the last hours of their lives the couple were tied up, savagely beaten and raped. Naked, screaming and trailing blood, the Rainwaters somehow escaped into the pre-dawn fog with their infant children just before six a.m. Both parents were murdered in the motel parking lot. Residents awoke to gunshots, screams and the sound of a truck driving off. The two children were found alive under their mother’s body. Dennis Duane Webb, then 35, was arrested for dealing marijuana in Paso Robles within days. Evidence was accumulated linking Webb to the murders including a fingerprint on duct tape at the crime scene.
Webb was sentenced to death in San Luis Obispo County on August 15, 1988.
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