Man serving life for murder pleads guilty to pursuit charges
A man already sentenced to life in prison for a Northern California murder that triggered the police shooting death of his wife at the end of a 100-mile interstate pursuit that stretched from Riverside County to Arizona, pleaded guilty today to charges related to shots that were fired at a motorist on Interstate 10 during the chase.
Victor Pierre Bento Silva, 30, of Greenbrae, California, was sentenced to a life term two years ago for the Feb. 28, 2015, death of Stephanie Lejean Hill, 37, his wife and accomplice in the 2015 robbery and murder of 84-year-old Olga Dinelli in Sonoma County. He also pleaded no contest to murder and robbery in Dinelli’s shooting death and was sentenced to 41 years to life last year.
Silva was sentenced to an additional four years and eight months Friday following his pleas to felony counts of assault with a gun and evading arrest. The new sentence will be served concurrently with his Arizona sentence.
Hill was shot to death by a deputy in Arizona following a wild chase that began in Coachella when law enforcement spotted their Chevrolet Tahoe, which had been reported in connection with Dinelli’s murder. Though Silva did not pull the trigger, La Paz County prosecutors charged him with his wife’s murder on the theory that his actions in the pursuit caused her death.
Silva was similarly charged by Riverside County prosecutors with assault with a gun and evading arrest for shots fired at a driver who pulled up alongside the Tahoe on eastbound I-10 between Cottonwood Springs and Hayfield roads during the chase, though Hill pulled the trigger.
The victim’s vehicle was not struck by the gunfire.
Hill also shot at a Quartzsite, Arizona police officer who was laying spike strips in the roadway that disabled the Tahoe, but the officer was not struck.
Sheriff’s investigators picked Silva up from an Arizona prison and booked him into the Indio jail last month to appear on the assault and evading arrest charges.
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