Convicted murderer Anthony Louis King was granted parole by a two-commissioner panel of the Board of Parole Hearings, following a hearing Wednesday at the California State Prison, Corcoran.
During the end of summer in 1987, King was 16 and living in Knights Landing. On September 6, 1987, Steven Patton, 35, was murdered while fishing at Portuguese Bend, a popular Knights Landing fishing spot. King and his co-defendant Kenneth Bivert had befriended Patton and drank beer with him on three occasions that night.
King and Bivert wanted to go joyriding, so they later returned to the fishing spot to kill Patton. After Bivert shot Patton in the side of the face with King’s shotgun, King took the victim’s money and keys from his pockets. Together they threw Patton’s body in the river before they took his truck. After they finished their joyride, they discarded the truck in a nearby slough.
Two days later, King and Bivert killed again. They made a plan to rob the local Bank of America and decided they needed a getaway car. They returned to the same fishing spot, where they found husband and wife Raymond and Dawn Rogers fishing.
King was armed with Bivert’s .38-caliber Special, while Bivert was armed with a .44-caliber Magnum revolver. They also brought King’s 12-gauge shotgun with them, using the weapons to shoot and kill Mr. and Mrs. Rogers.
The autopsies indicated Mr. Rogers, 29, was shot in the back, possibly while in a stooped position. He also had a .38-caliber bullet wound to the top of his head and a separate wound on his chest. Mrs. Rogers, 32, had been shot four times in the back from a .38-caliber. She also sustained a shot in the back of the head from a large-caliber weapon.
King took money and the car keys from her purse while Bivert threw the fishing equipment into the river. They dumped the couple’s bodies in the river and fled in the Rogerses’ car. Even after the two were apprehended in Oregon on September 11, 1987, evidence established that King and Bivert had planned to overpower the law enforcement officer who was transporting them.
A Yolo County jury convicted King of multiple counts of murder and robbery on July 8, 1988. Four months later, Judge James Roach sentenced King to 52 years to life in state prison. Bivert pleaded guilty to the murders on January 14, 1988, and also was sentenced to 52 years to life for the crimes.
In 2001, Bivert was sentenced to the death penalty after he fatally stabbed a fellow inmate at Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad. Now 50, he is incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven, along with Dawn Rogers’ sister and niece and Raymond Rogers’ daughter, participated in the parole hearing by telephone conference. District Attorney Victim Advocate Kenya Salazar-Campos supported the family members of the victims.
Commissioners Rosalio Castro and Christopher Uroni agreed that King no longer posed an unreasonable risk to society if released. Castro told King, “You are now 49 years old. Your change is a complete turnaround from what we saw when you were 16. We felt you showed good insight and remorse and you have realistic parole plans.”
Raven commented on some of the concerning issues raised by the psychologist who wrote King’s lengthy Comprehensive Risk Assessment but did not argue in opposition of parole.
“Mr. King has been given a second chance by Commissioners Castro and Uroni,” Raven said. “I hope he earns it by living a crime-free life in society and using his time to help and support others in honor of the victims Steve Patton, Dawn Rogers and Raymond Rogers.”