ANAHEIM : Man Gets Life Term for Fatal Carjacking

A 20-year-old Anaheim man was sentenced to life in prison without parole last week for his role in the 1992 slaying of a college student during one of the first fatal carjackings in Orange County.

Jurors in May convicted Allen Dean Burnett II, who last worked as a telemarketer, on charges of first-degree murder, kidnaping, robbery and additional allegations in the murder of Joseph Andrew Kondrath, 23, of Anaheim.

Kondrath, a Rancho Santiago College student, was last seen leaving for his job at a supermarket at 4 a.m. on June 10, 1992. Prosecutors said he was grabbed from behind the wheel of his car in front of his home, robbed of $1, then shot in the head as he lay crouched in the trunk of his car pleading, “Don’t hurt me.” Authorities alleged that he was murdered to eliminate him as a witness.

Two other men were also convicted in connection with the slaying.

The alleged triggerman, Shawn Burney, 20, of Tustin, faces the death penalty when he is sentenced Sept. 2 by Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald. Scott Rembert, 22, of Anaheim was convicted of kidnaping, but jurors deadlocked on the other counts, including murder and robbery.

In a court sentencing report, Burnett said he prays every night for the victim and his family and wanted the judge to know that he didn’t want the victim to die. Burnett said he had been drinking heavily the night of the crime and had been drinking every day for six months before.

“I’m really sorry that this whole thing happened,” he wrote in a statement to the court. “I only wish there was a way I could have prevented it from happening. If I wasn’t drunk, I know I could have done something to save his life.”

The victim’s father, Joseph Kondrath, said in the report that his anguish is even worse knowing that his son was a “perfectly innocent kid who was killed for the fun of it.”

The victim’s mother, Joanna Kondrath, told authorities that she thought all three men should have gotten the death penalty.