Man Gets Life in Ex-Wife’s Murder, Rape : Courts: Prosecutor reads the statement from the daughter of the Sylmar defendant after she breaks down in the courtroom.

As his daughter broke down in tears, saying she wished things could have been different, a Sylmar man was sentenced Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the brutal rape and murder of his ex-wife.

William Edward Stevens, 51, clad in an orange Los Angeles County Jail outfit, showed no emotion and did not speak during the hearing.

Before sentencing, Stevens’ daughter, Nicole Kellogg, tried to speak, but she broke down crying and could not finish reading a written statement she had prepared.

“I just wish this didn’t have to be like this,” she said between sobs. “I feel really bad.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Jonas finished reading her statement, in which she said her mother’s grisly murder has left her terrified to be alone and afraid to walk around at night in her own home.

After reading her statement, Jonas said that in his 25 years as a prosecutor he had never been involved in another case in which the “sanctity of life has been so violated and where a person’s own preoccupation and habits have not only created a dysfunctional family” but have “affected so many people.”

Jonas said the real tragedy in the case is the emotional impact it will have on Stevens’ two daughters. “Those scars will never go away,” he said.

Stevens’ attorneys, Patrick Atkinson and Vivien McGuire, said little in the proceedings except to make some corrections to a probation report and say that Stevens, too, had been abused as a child.

A San Fernando Superior Court jury took fewer than three days in August to convict Stevens of murdering his ex-wife, Rufina Stevens, 47, on Feb. 9, 1990. Her nude, mangled body was left on a railroad track near her Sun Valley home and was hit by a freight train.

Stevens denied killing her, saying he was home at the time of the slaying.

There was no physical evidence linking Stevens to the murder, but Jonas was able to persuade a jury that Stevens used a piano wire to strangle her while an unknown accomplice raped and sodomized her. Stevens was also convicted of rape and sodomy for his role in the assault and the accomplice was never found.

During the trial, a jailhouse informant testified that Stevens admitted committing the murder, and Jonas said that Stevens made statements to the police that only the killer could have known.

Jonas said Stevens killed his ex-wife because he realized that he had lost control over her life and that she no longer wanted to see him.

The same jury recommended that Stevens be sentenced to life in prison rather than be executed.

After sentencing, Atkinson filed an appeal of the conviction arguing that testimony about Stevens’ past history of sexually assaulting his two daughters and a prior conviction for child abuse should not have been allowed because it was prejudicial.