Killer of Girlfriend Given 30 Years to Life : Courts: A tearful Richard Nunno, 21, pleads for leniency in killing then-16-year-old sweetheart, saying he has found God. But judge is unconvinced, adding five years to term for use of gun.

Judy Austin remembers wearing a pretty flowered dress with an antique lace collar when she learned her 16-year-old daughter was shot twice in the heart by an obsessive boyfriend.

She forced herself to wear the dress for the first time since then on Friday as Richard K. Nunno was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for murdering Melissa Austin on June 13, 1993. The girl had told Nunno she no longer wanted to date him.

“Our lives have been shattered beyond description,” Judy Austin said as she struggled to hold back her tears during Friday’s sentencing hearing.

Mike Austin, Melissa’s father, also wept as he recalled the popular sophomore at Mission Viejo High School, who was just beginning to consider careers and dreamed of owning a convertible. Austin smiled as he acknowledged that his daughter aspired to win a letter in soccer in part because she considered the jackets “cool.”

“I wanted to see my daughter graduate from high school and college,” he told Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon. “I wanted to see her grow into a young woman and have a happy life. That vile, satanic felon ended those dreams.”

Nunno’s first-degree-murder conviction carried a mandatory 25-years-to-life sentence. On Friday, the judge turned away Nunno’s last-minute plea for leniency. Weatherspoon exercised his discretion by adding a maximum five-year penalty for using a gun--saying he could not imagine more “aggravated” circumstances.

Nunno, who contends he killed Austin when their murder-suicide pact went awry, asked the judge for mercy just moments before he was sentenced. He said he had found God and planned to begin a ministry in prison.

“I am a good kid,” he said. “I wish all of this had never happened.”

During Friday’s hearing, tears sprang to his eyes while he recalled his former girlfriend.

Nunno, now 21, had turned a gun on himself after shooting Melissa Austin. He told the court he tried to kill himself again in jail but God stopped him and said: “You are my child. I would like you to be my servant.”

“I know I didn’t save Melissa’s life, but now I want to save others’,” Nunno said.

Judy and Michael Austin forbade their daughter to date Nunno because they considered him too old for her. They also believed Nunno, who was 20 at the time, was a bad influence who coerced their daughter to sneak off to be with him, to run away from home and even break into cars.

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“Because of her youth and innocence she could not know what kind of a man he was,” Judy Austin told the judge.

But during his trial, Nunno had cast the pair as a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers who decided to die together rather than live apart. When Melissa Austin tried to back out of the murder-suicide pact, Nunno testified he “flipped” and shot her.

He fled the crime scene and shot himself in the chest, but the wound was not fatal. He left behind a suicide note for the Austins: “(Expletive) you Mr. and Mrs. Austin, you ruined my life.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Clyde P. Von Der Ahe had argued at trial last month that Nunno killed Austin because he refused to let her break off their relationship, and said there was evidence that Melissa had begun dating a boy her own age.

Deputy Public Defender E. Robert Goss Jr. had argued the killing was done in passion and was not premeditated.

Jurors disagreed and convicted Nunno of first-degree murder.

According to court records, Nunno had several convictions as a juvenile, including for petty theft, making threatening phone calls to a teacher and starting a fire in a house.

As Judy Austin left the courthouse Friday, she said she will never again wear the flowered dress--it’s too painful a reminder of her loss. Mike Austin said he would fight any future attempts to parole Nunno, but said his case holds powerful lessons for parents.

“Love them every single day of the week,” he said, adding that he and Melissa exchanged hugs, kisses and said “I love you” the day before she died. “Hold them close every day of the week.”