Young Killer Gets 50 Years

A Mira Mesa man who admitted killing two Mexican migrant workers in Rancho Penasquitos was sentenced Tuesday to 50 years to life in state prison.

Kenneth Kovzelove, 18, was also ordered to pay a $20,000 fine, which will be garnished from his prison wages.

San Diego Superior Court Judge William Mudd said Kovzelove has no conscience, and is “a cold-blooded killer.”

“Mr. Kovzelove, you have earned every bit of what you’re going to get,” Mudd said before pronouncing the sentence. “It is not a crime of passion. . . . It is a crime of hate.”

The judge said Kovzelove will serve his term in the California Youth Authority until he reaches 25, then will be transferred to an adult prison.

On Nov. 9, 1988, Kovzelove shot Hilario Castaneda Salgado, 22, and Matilde de la Sancha, 19, as they were walking along Black Mountain Road. De la Sancha was shot eight times with a South Korean-made semiautomatic assault rifle; Castaneda was hit five times.

Kovzelove told authorities he disliked Mexicans and believed they took jobs from U.S. citizens by crossing the border illegally.

Castaneda, a Mexico native, was a naturalized U.S. citizen, according to the probation report released Tuesday.

Kovzelove was arrested at Ft. Benning, Ga., last March, where he had enlisted in the Army.

Although he was 17 at the time, a Juvenile Court ruled that Kovzelove was fit to be tried as an adult. He pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in October after Mudd ruled that his confession could be heard by a jury.

A co-defendant, Dennis Bencivenga, 20, of Rancho Bernardo, is scheduled to go on trial April 5.

At the sentencing, Kovzelove’s attorney, Leif Tessem, urged the judge to impose concurrent sentences totaling 25 years.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dave Stutz recited Kovzelove’s own comments to investigators, in which he said he needed to have his “violence knob turned down.” Stutz asked the judge to “turn it off” by giving him consecutive sentences.