Pair Sentenced in Drive-By Death : Crime: The South County gang members receive long prison terms for shooting a Lake Forest youth as he was talking to his family in his bedroom.

Two South County gang members were sentenced to long prison terms Friday for their role in the drive-by shooting death of a Lake Forest youth after the victim’s father made a tearful plea for the harshest sentence possible.

Matthew Lloyd Conant was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for firing the shot that killed Bylon Hanna as the 17-year-old sat in his bedroom talking to his family.

Carl E. Stewart, 19, of Laguna Niguel was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for his role in the December, 1991, slaying.

Hanna’s father, Eugene Hanna, told the court Friday that “my son meant more to me than life,” that he was killed by “people that didn’t care who they hurt.”

A third defendant, Christopher Michael Womack, 19, who has admitted that he was in the car when the three shots were fired, is awaiting trial. A fourth gang member, Jason Paul LeGare, who has pleaded guilty to his role in the slaying, is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 11.

Conant and Stewart were found guilty in July of second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of 15 years to life in prison. For using a gun, Conant received an additional five-year sentence to be served consecutively.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carolyn Kirkwood asked Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald to impose maximum sentences, citing probation reports that the two men did not accept responsibility for the shooting or express any remorse.

Kirkwood asked the court to remember testimony during the trial that, as their car approached the Hanna house, “these two individuals . . . argued over who was going to get the ‘privilege’--the way that they saw it--the ‘privilege’ of shooting into that house. . . . They are equally culpable.”

Neither defendant addressed the court before sentencing. But Conant’s lawyer, Thomas H. Wolfsen, said the 19-year-old Mission Viejo man was “extremely remorseful” for what he did.

James W. Brott, Stewart’s lawyer, said his client also was sorry for Hanna’s death, which he characterized as “a series of events that got out of control.”

On the day before the shooting, Hanna, his brothers and some friends got into an altercation with Conant and his friends at a party, which ended in an exchange of threats, according to testimony at the trial,

The next night, while talking with family members in his bedroom, Hanna heard a car drive by the house, stood up to look and was shot once in the abdomen.

When Eugene Hanna spoke in court Friday, he brought a poster-sized photograph of his dead son with him to the podium. Judge Fitzgerald asked a bailiff to hang the picture on a bulletin board while the father spoke.

“Bylon didn’t deserve to go the way he did,” Hanna said. “To see the memories around the house is hard. I think any parents that watched their son die right in front of them” would understand the pain he felt.

“Bylon left without saying goodby to anyone, his baby sister, his brothers,” Eugene Hanna said, weeping. “These gentlemen want me to accept their saying that they’re sorry. Sorry can’t bring my son back. . . . They took my son’s life and they should also be paying with their lives . . . not ever be (free) to face civilization again.”