Published: April 30, 2010
Updated: 2:34 p.m.

Day laborer gets 26 years to life for killing boss with pickax

By RACHANEE SRISAVASDI
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – A day laborer who repeatedly hit his boss with a shovel, and then used a pickax to crush his head, was sentenced Friday to 26 years to life in prison.

Ernesto Hernando Avalos, 23, of Santa Ana was convicted in March of the Jan. 27, 2007, death of Woo Sung Park, a 45-year-old Rancho Santa Margarita father who owned a landscaping business, Blue Bird Landscape.

Park hired Avalos and another worker to tend to a back yard of an Irvine home. After lunch, the other worker went to the back yard, and spotted Park lying motionless on the ground. Avalos held a shovel.

Police were called to the scene. They asked Avalos to drop the shovel. He did, but then picked up a pickax and smashed Park's head. Park died instantly.

During the trial, Deputy District Attorney Steve McGreevy said Avalos told police that he took methamphetamine that morning, and that he was angry at Park for complaining that he was working too slowly.

Deputy Public Defender Arthur Phan countered that his client was acting in self-defense, and feared his boss was about to attack him.

On Friday, Avalos told Superior Court Judge M. Mark Kelly reiterated the same argument and said that he did not intend to kill Park.

"I regret everything I did,'' Avalos said through a Spanish language translator. "It was a very bad deed that I cannot remedy with anything I do."

The judge said he believed Avalos' sincerity, but added his actions could not be erased.

"It was a heinous crime, it was a vicious crime,'' Kelly said. "It did not have to happen."

Park's sister, Helen, attended the sentencing hearing. She declined to comment.

Contact the writer: 714-834-3773 or rsrisavasdi@ocregister.com

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