Parents Seek Answers in Son’s Death

It has been a year since Timoteo Silva was found beaten and mutilated in a California Youth Authority cell, but time has done nothing to ease his family’s sorrow.

His parents, Savas and Antonia Silva of North Hollywood, cry often at the thought of their son’s gruesome death, and at the mystery that still surrounds it.

How, they ask, could Silva, only the third youth killed in the department’s nearly 60-year history, have been subjected to hours of torture without anyone noticing?

“Nobody saw and nobody heard anything. That’s why we’re so sad,” Antonia Silva said. “No one did anything for him.”

The family, upset that guards did not prevent the death, last week filed a federal civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit, claiming that the youth authority was negligent.

Timoteo, who was 20, died last March 15 while in his cell at the N.A. Chaderjian School in Stockton. His cellmate, Anthony DeSoto, now 19, was charged with murder and special circumstances of torture and sodomy and faces the death penalty if convicted.

Law enforcement authorities said there was no sign of gang warfare or any other rivalry leading to the killing. DeSoto and Silva were cellmates only about two days.

Officials with the San Joaquin district attorney’s office say evidence shows that DeSoto used clothing and bedding to restrain and gag Silva and cut him using a makeshift razor. The alleged torture, which included rape and other physical abuse, apparently lasted several hours, they said.

But Dorothy B. Klishevich, the prosecutor handling the case, said that while evidence against DeSoto is strong, none exists to indicate that guards should have prevented the death.

“Every time it was about time for a guard to come by, [DeSoto] would desist in whatever he was doing and it wouldn’t be apparent,” she said. It was not, she added, as though “things were flying around the cell.”

Sarah Ludeman, a spokeswoman for the youth authority, declined to comment on the Silva’s lawsuit. She said the department requires staff to perform visual checks of inmates, essentially seeing hair and skin, every 30 minutes. That policy apparently was followed the day Silva died, she said.

“We are very much in the business of providing the safest environment,” Ludeman said. “We take it very, very seriously. Obviously, it’s a tragedy.”

The Silvas’ lawyer, Steven Gourley, alleges that someone in addition to DeSoto is to blame.

“They put this guy in a cell with a very dangerous person and he murdered him,” Gourley said. “How could something this terrible happen to their son and nobody saw it and nobody heard it? . . . This guy was cut up.”

Klishevich said the case against DeSoto, whose public defender was unavailable for comment, remains in its early stages. It is set for trial at Superior Court in Stockton in September, she said.

Klishevich said that the killing was indeed gruesome.

“Apparently using a prison-made weapon, some cuts were made in [Silva’s] skin,” she said. “Some of that was done before death and some of it was done after death.

“There were some figures drawn, similar to Roman numerals. It’s not really clear what the purpose was,” she said. “For fun, or boredom, because he had already killed him. It’s not really known.”

DeSoto was serving time for robbery. Silva was serving time for attempted murder after he was found to have been in a car involved in an attempted drive-by shooting. Silva’s relatives said it was a case of mistaken identity, and they looked forward to the day when he would be released to work with his father as a gardener.

Timoteo Silva, who came to the United States from Mexico with his family as a 1-year-old, was expected to complete his sentence this month had he lived. The second oldest of nine children and the oldest of four boys, he was eager to visit his birthplace, spend time with his grandparents, become more prayerful and eventually build his own family, his relatives said.

The younger children in the family, who do not know their brother is dead, often ask when they will see him again. Shortly before his death, Timoteo had vowed that he would help his parents make ends meet in any way he could.

To his family, the horror of Silva’s death will never go away. They are convinced it is impossible that guards did everything they could have, or should have.

“Was it carelessness? We want to know the truth,” Savas Silva said. “I can’t believe how he died. . . . He died such an ugly death. That’s what stays in my mind.”