Left: Marvin Magallanes. Right: Kylie Jenner attends the 2022 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 15, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The California man who said he killed three people because he believed he was told to do so by reality star and business mogul Kylie Jenner will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Marvin Magallanes, 31, was sentenced Thursday to two consecutive life terms in prison, plus an additional 15 years to life, for the murders of Onosai Tavita, 52, Sabah Alsaad, 49, and Danny Pham, 27, the Orange County Register reported.
Tavita and Alsaad were both homeless men when Magallanes killed them; Pham had been his cellmate in jail as he was awaiting trial.
According to local news website City News Service, Tavita was killed about 2:00 a.m. on Oct. 27, 2016, as he slept behind a restaurant. Alsaad was sleeping on a bus bench when he was killed at around 2:15 a.m. Jan. 27, 2017.
In May of 2017, Magallanes turned himself in to Anaheim police and reportedly confessed to killing Alsaad. The Register reported that detectives had linked the killings of Alsaad and Tavita together through DNA. Magallanes reportedly told police that he killed Alsaad after spotting him sleeping on a bus bench. The defendant reportedly went home, retrieved a kitchen knife, and drove back to where he had seen Alsaad, eventually stabbing him to death.
He had killed Tavita in a similar way, City News Service reported, after driving around for hours searching for a victim.
Magallanes strangled Pham in July of 2017 when he was awaiting trial. Pham, his cellmate at the time, was reportedly due to be released from jail on a joyriding conviction. The Register reported that surveillance footage shows Magallanes coming up on Pham from behind, wrapping his arms around his throat, and dragging him backwards. Pham was reportedly found hours later, covered by a sheet on one of the beds in the cell.
Pham’s sister, Tina Wu, told Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Menninger that her brother’s violent death has had a devastating impact on her family.
“To articulate the impact that this horrific crime has had on me is indescribable,” Wu said, according to City News Service. “The death of my brother has affected my entire family, and has caused us all to live a life full of fear, stress and anxiety.”
Magallanes did not react when Menninger issued her sentence, according to the Register.
Defense attorney Michael Hill argued that Magallanes has schizophrenia and was under the delusion that he was in a relationship with Jenner, the Register reported. Magallanes apparently believed that Jenner told him that someone was trying to “steal his life” and the only way to prevent it was to end someone else’s.
Prior to the killings in 2016, Magallanes had twice driven to Jenner’s home in Calabasas, according to the Register. He reportedly told security guards that he was there to see Jenner, and at one point tried to drive through a security gate.
City News Service reported that Magallanes had pleaded no contest to misdemeanor vandalism and was sentenced to 10 days in county jail and placed on summary probation for a year.
[Image of Magallanes via Anaheim Police Department. Image of Jenner via Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.]
