Thread: Convicted murderer sentenced in slaying of Berkeley college student | Casey Bissell

Convicted murderer sentenced in Mission slaying of Berkeley college student

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/conv...2fa0d7502.html

• By Michael Barba

• Sep 18, 2015

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Wendy D’Arcy holds her son Casey Bissell’s work shirt, which has been signed in memory of him, at the Hall…

The man convicted of murdering a 25-year-old college student in the Mission last December was sentenced Friday morning to 19-years-to-life in state prison.

Casey Bissell was celebrating his acceptance to the University of California Berkeley with his younger brother and friends Dec. 7 when he was fatally stabbed by Andres Novelo, 27, a recent immigrant from Mexico.

Novelo was convicted of second degree murder, two counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon and a count of simple assault July 2, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Rochelle East said in court.

“The nature of the crime could not have been more serious,” East said, calling the murderous attack tragic, senseless and unprovoked. She said Bissell was stabbed to death at 18th and Valencia streets “for no discernible reason.”

Before East sentenced Novelo, she listened to statements from almost a dozen of Bissell’s family members and friends who asked the defendant be sentenced to the maximum term in prison. Novelo hung his head as Bissell’s relatives cried.

“I hope God can forgive you because we’re having trouble with that,” Dottie van Eckhardt, Bissell’s grandmother, told Novelo as her relatives wept in the aisles.

Bissell’s mother Wendy D’Arcy brought a shirt Bissell wore to work as a sous chef at the 123 Bolinas restaurant in Fairfax, which had been signed by coworkers and friends.

D’Arcy told Novelo to look at the shirt. After reading each memory scribbled on it like a high school yearbook, she gazed at Novelo as if to make sure he understood how much her son was cared for.

“I wake nightly, crying, envisioning all the tapes watched throughout the trial and I struggle with not being there to save my son,” she said in court, before condemning Novelo to “hang from a tree until you’re dead and let the insects and vultures peck away at your rotting corpse.”

The night Bissell was killed, he saved his brother Nick Martin’s life by pushing out of the attacker’s way.

“I held my brother as he died and that’s a nightmare I will have the rest of my life,” Martin said in court.