SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - A family wants the Governor of California to keep the man who murdered three San Diego State professors behind bars.
Frederick Davidson was sent to prison in 1997 for three consecutive life sentences without parole after he gunned down his three engineering professors Chen Liang, Preston Lowry, and Constantinos Lyrintzis.
The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office recently notified the victims’ families that Davidson applied for executive clemency.
“Just asking for clemency? Out of what? On what grounds?” asked a distraught Esther Alonso, Lyrintzis’ sister-in-law. Lyrintzis was married to her sister, Deana Alonso, and the couple had a young daughter.
A District Attorney’s Office spokesman said the DA’s office already filed a letter opposing Davidson’s request.
Alonso told 10News she could not believe Davidson would request clemency. Alonso said the family agreed to not seek the death penalty in 1997 if Davidson agreed to plead guilty and go to prison for life without parole.
“How can they tell them 20 years later that the deaths of their husbands and their fathers…that this guy has more rights than they do?” asked Alonso, a professor at Southwestern College. “I don’t understand a system where that is even possible.”
Alonso created a Change.org petition directed at Governor Jerry Brown asking him to deny Davidson’s request.
The DA’s spokesman said their office opposed more than 50 clemency requests last year and none of those requests were granted. The spokesman added there is no deadline for Governor Brown to respond or send it to a hearing.
