Youth to Be Tried as Adult in Killings of 2 Migrant Workers

Condemning what apparently were hate killings of two Mexican farm workers as “no less than heinous,” a Juvenile Court judge ordered Thursday that a 17-year-old San Diegan accused of being the triggerman in the slayings face justice as an adult.

Kenneth Alexander Kovzelove, a one-time aspiring Army paratrooper who allegedly acknowledged to investigators that he was fond of killing, was ordered held in lieu of $1-million bail by Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Kapiloff. Kovzelove, who has denied the murder charges during juvenile proceedings, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Municipal Court in San Diego.

He and a co-defendant, Dennis Alexander Bencivenga, 19, a one-time security guard from San Diego, are charged with the slayings Nov. 9 of two Mexican men along an isolated, semi-rural stretch of Black Mountain Road, an area near San Diego’s northern boundary that is frequented by migrant workers.

Bencivenga, who allegedly drove the pickup truck from which Kovzelove gunned down the two men with a South Korean-made assault rifle, was freed last week on $150,000 property bond posted by relatives.

If convicted, the two face up to life in jail on the first-degree murder charges. If convicted in the juvenile system, authorities would have had to release Kovzelove when he reached his 25th birthday, said Carlos Armour, the deputy district attorney in charge of juvenile prosecutions.

Because of the severity of the crime, both sides in the case had expected Kapiloff to order Kovzelove charged in the adult system. Kovzelove’s attorney, Leif F. Tessem, did not present a witness at Thursday’s 15-minute court session.

The court hearing included the strongest public indication to date that the killers were motivated by racial hatred, and that Kovzelove was the driving force behind the slayings.

A police interview with Kovzelove showed “a cold-blooded desire on the part of this minor to kill Mexicans. And he planned it. And he went out and did it. At that point it ceases to be a fantasy. . . . I don’t believe this youth can be rehabilitated” in the juvenile system, Kapiloff said.

Armour, the prosecutor in Juvenile Court, called the case “the coldest murder I’ve ever seen,” adding: “This young man went out there that evening for the sole purpose of killing people . . . basically for the reason that he didn’t like Mexicans.”

Bodies Found With Cash

A police affidavit on file indicates that the two had also considered robbing some migrant workers that evening, although they apparently never carried out the robbery. The two bodies were found with more than $300 cash, according to San Diego police.

A. David Stutz, the deputy district attorney who will prosecute the young men as adults, said in court previously that the two scouted the slaying site both before and after the killings, seeking other prospective victims. Stutz has characterized the pair as “aspiring Rambos.”

Armour said Thursday that, during questioning by police investigators, Kovzelove had said he enjoyed killing, and that he had enlisted in the armed forces to continue satisfying that desire. “He liked killing so much he joined the Army,” Armour said.

Asked by a detective if he liked to kill, Armour said that Kovzelove had replied: “Yes, sir. I wish I could do it in a more just way.”

Kovzelove was arrested last month at Ft. Benning, Ga., where he was in training as an Army paratrooper.

The slim Kovzelove sat through Thursday’s hearing impassively. He was dressed in a gray sweat shirt, blue pants and sneakers, and his hair was cut close to his scalp.

The two victims have been identified by the coroner’s office as Hilario Casteneda Salgado, 22, and Matilde Macedo de la Sancha, 19. Both were Mexican citizens who resided in migrant camps near the murder site, authorities have said.