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Man Found Guilty of Killing Coworker's Boyfriend After She "Repeatedly Rebuffed" His Romantic Advances
A jury found Kevin Prasad guilty on all counts including first-degree murder, lying in wait, and firing into an occupied vehicle at Mark Mangaccat on April 25, 2018.
A California man was convicted of fatally shooting the boyfriend of a co-worker who turned down his constant attempts to begin a romance with her.
A jury found Kevin Prasad, 37, guilty on all counts including first-degree murder, lying in wait, and firing into an occupied vehicle at Mark Mangaccat, who was 31, on April 25, 2018, the San Mateo County District Attorney announced Friday.
"Prasad shot and killed Mark Mangaccat after Mangaccat's girlfriend repeatedly rebuffed Prasad's efforts to start a relationship with her," the San Mateo County District Attorney stated on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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The convicted killer is due back in court for sentencing on November 17, and San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe plans to push for a life sentence, according to San Francisco news site SFGATE.
Prasad was working as a security guard through a private contractor at San Francisco International Airport at the time of the murder, where Mangaccat and his girlfriend also worked, the news site reported.
Prosecutors said Prasad followed Mangaccat and his girlfriend home from the airport to Daly City and then shot into the vehicle they were in five or six times. Another man, Donovan Matthew Rivera, allegedly served as Prasad's getaway driver, SFGATE reported. Both Prasad and Rivera were arrested on April 26, 2018 at Rivera's home in Hayward and charged with murder. Rivera has pleaded not guilty, according to People.
While prosecutors stated that Mangaccat’s girlfriend repeatedly turned down Prasad’s attempts at romantic involvement, they've also said the colleagues had some communication outside of work.
“She maintained that they never had anything going on. But when we downloaded everybody’s phone, there was some communication with Prasad,” Wagstaffe said, according to SFGATE. “This was a love triangle. And we do see homicides occurring in a triangle.”
Mangaccat and his girlfriend shared a daughter together and were getting ready to relocate to Las Vegas, which is what allegedly set Prasad off.
“Lying in wait is more colloquially known as ‘ambush,’” Wagstaffe told SFGATE, in explaining one of the charges Prasad was convicted of. “It’s waiting for the right opportunity, and that’s just what they did. All due to the fact that he didn’t want this woman to leave and move away to Vegas."
Mangaccat and his girlfriend, who People identified as Thandar Seinn in a 2019 article, were planning to get married in Las Vegas once they moved there.
“It was a new chapter," Seinn told People at the time. "Everything was changing. We wanted to create our own life.”
She added that despite Prasad asking her out several times, she never thought he was capable of murder.
“It was just a crush,” Seinn told People. “He’d say things like, ‘Don’t you want to go out with me?’ Mark knew about it, but neither one of us paid too much attention to it.”
She said in 2019 that she wished it were all just a dream. “But it’s not," Seinn said. "I am empty. I only think of Mark. He should be here. It is a killing for nothing. There was no reason."
