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| A San Francisco man was charged with fatally shooting his female co-worker’s boyfriend, after trying in vain date his colleague. In this photo, a police officer restrains a man (C) arrested during an anti-parallel trading protest in the Yuen Long district of Hong Kong on March 1, 2015. Photo: Getty Images/ ANTHONY WALLACE |
By Pritha Paul, International Business Times - Business
A San Francisco man was charged with fatally shooting his female co-worker’s boyfriend, after trying in vain to date his colleague, authorities said Tuesday. The getaway driver who aided the man in his plans was also charged for the crime.
Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said Kevin Prasad, 31, and Donovan Rivera, 25, were charged in the murder of 31-year-old Mark Mangaccat on April 25.
Prasad had expressed his desire to start a romantic relationship with the victim’s girlfriend, who is also the mother of the couple’s three-year-old child, but the latter had rebuffed his repeated attempts in office.
“She kept telling this guy, ‘No, I have a boyfriend, I’m in a relationship,’” Wagstaffe told the Mercury News. “She always pushed him away.”
However, Prasad was adamant about wanting to date his co-worker, and could not bear the thought of her relocating to Las Vegas with her boyfriend and child.
“The working proposition for the motive is, 'If I kill him and get him out of the way, then I could be there to start the relationship with the grieving widow,'” Wagstaffe said. “That's pretty bizarre.”
On Tuesday — the woman’s last day at work — the victim picked up his girlfriend and headed home to Abbot Avenue in Daly City, without knowing that Rivera and Prasad were allegedly following him. As Mangaccat was backing the vehicle into the garage, Prasad allegedly walked up and fired five to six shots into the car, prosecutors said. The shots killed the victim and left his girlfriend unharmed.
Next, Prasad, ran back to the car and Rivera drove the duo away from the scene. They were, however, found by investigators a day later and arrested.
The victim worked at San Francisco International Airport till he suffered a leg injury and was forced out of employment. The suspect and the victim's girlfriend worked for Covenant Aviation Security, which provides security services at the airport.
According to Sacramento Bee, both Prasad and Mangaccat previously had casual encounters but no interactions or conflicts, Wagstaffe said.
Although the woman did not get a good look at the suspect when shooting took place because he was wearing a hoodie, she did mention Prasad’s name when talking about the case with the investigators, telling them he had been harassing her at work for quite some time. The information she provided led to the arrest of the suspect and the getaway driver.
Even though Rivera was the getaway driver, police said he also faced a murder charge because he “was aware” of Prasad’s plan. If convicted, both Prasad and Rivera could possibly be sentenced to the death penalty, because a “lying in wait” special circumstance was added to the murder charges.
According to the Law Dictionary, “lying in wait,” “lying in ambush,” “lying hid” refers to being “concealed for the purpose of making a sudden and unexpected attack upon a person when he shall arrive at the scene. In some jurisdictions, where there are several degrees of murder, lying in wait is made evidence of that deliberation and premeditated intent which is necessary to characterize murder in the first degree.”
Both the defendants did not enter pleas during their first court appearance Monday. They are scheduled to reappear in court May 8 for their appointed Private Defender Program attorneys and to possibly enter pleas, NBC Bay Area reported.
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