Sex Offender Pleads Not Guilty To Strangling Girlfriend

FRENCH VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — A registered sex offender has pleaded not guilty to strangling his girlfriend and driving to a Southern California sheriff's station with her body in his trunk.

Jason Richard Budrow, 30, entered the plea in a Riverside County court on Friday.

Budrow is charged with murder and a special circumstance of lying in wait, making him eligible for the death penalty.

Authorities say Budrow appeared at the Lake Elsinore sheriff's station on Oct. 22 with the body of the woman he had been dating -- 48-year-old Margret Dalton of Perris -- in the trunk.

In a jailhouse interview with the Riverside Press-Enterprise shortly after his arrest, Budrow said he had to kill Dalton because he feared she was a police informant.

He is being held without bail.

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