SIMI VALLEY : Man Gets 15 Years for Strangling Date

Convicted killer Peter Michael Bergne was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison Thursday for strangling his date, who was mentally ill, last August.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Robert C. Bradley ignored Bergne’s request for probation instead of jail but recommended that Bergne be placed in a high-security psychiatric unit after the frail, unemployed draftsman pleaded, “It would kill me if I were placed in the prison system.”

Bergne, 46, is a diagnosed paranoid-schizophrenic. A jury convicted him on April 23 of second-degree murder in the death of Linda Anderson, 47, of Canoga Park, also a paranoid-schizophrenic. The jury found him not guilty of first-degree murder and attempted rape.

Bergne admitted in testimony that he strangled Anderson on Aug. 3 in his parked car in Northridge when his attempts to kiss her on their fifth date prompted her to punch him.

Bergne told jurors he panicked and drove to the Kerner Road exit of the Simi Valley Freeway. He dragged Anderson’s body out of the car and left it on the shoulder covered with boxes, where it was found the next morning.

Bradley said Bergne is a danger to society, particularly to women, and then sentenced him to 15 years to life, beginning immediately at the state prison in Chino.

But Bradley also recommended that Bergne be transferred to the maximum-security Atascadero State Hospital 25 miles north of San Luis Obispo, or a psychiatric unit at Vacaville state prison between Oakland and Sacramento.