NRI
convicted of killing four family members-
Jury Recommends Death
NRI family owned a motel- killings
were over a business dispute
LOS ANGELES, April 30, 2005
NRI Press
The prosecution said the brothers had set fire to
the house of their rival in Hollywood Hills. Gita
Kumar, 42, her mother-in-law Sitaben Patel, 63, son
Paras Kumar, 18, and daughter Tulsi Kumar, 16, perished.
A Superior Court jury late today recommended death
for a Cypress businessman convicted of killing four
family members in the Hollywood Hills three years
ago, the District Attorney’s office announced.
The jury deliberated about a day and a half before
recommending that 35-year-old Pravin Govin of Cypress
receive the death penalty for the May 4, 2002, murders
of the wife, children and mother-in-law of a business
rival. The defendant, wearing a navy blue suit, showed
no emotion when the jury’s recommendation was
read.
Trial Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell scheduled
formal sentencing for June 13. Defense lawyers are
expected to argue for a new trial and ask that the
judge not impose the death penalty.
If the judge upholds the jury recommendation,
Pravin Govin will join his 37-year-old elder brother,
Victor, on California’s Death row. The brothers
were tried last year. Victor Govin was convicted and
sentenced to death just before Christmas 2004. The
jury deadlocked on Pravin Govin’s case and his
retrial began in February of this year.
A third defendant, 28-year-old Carlos M. Amador
of Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree
murder in 2003 and testified against the Govin brothers.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 22 to four
concurrent 15-year-to-life prison terms.
On April 4, the jury convicted Pravin Govin of
four counts of first-degree murder and found true
the special circumstances of murder for financial
gain, multiple murder and murder during a robbery
and a burglary. That trigged the penalty phase of
the trial before the same jury. Deliberations on the
penalty began yesterday.
Gita Kumar, 42; her mother, Sitaben Patel, 63;
and her children, Paras, 18, and Tulsi, 16, perished
in the arson fire at their home in the Hollywood Hills.
Harish Kumar, Gita’s husband, then 47, was not
at home when the fire was set. He arrived a short
time later and called 911 when he could not get inside
to his family.
The Kumar family owned a motel in Studio City
that was next to a motel owned by the Govin family.
The killings were over a business dispute.
Former Deputy District Attorney Eleanor Hunter,
who prosecuted the case, was named a Los Angeles Superior
Court judge as Pravin Govin’s retrial was getting
under way. She delayed taking her seat on the bench
until she had completed the prosecution.
The Govins and Amador have been held without bail
since their arrests in 2002.
