Final suspect in Penngrove woman’s 2015 murder to be sentenced

A Novato man pleaded no contest Friday to first-degree murder and other charges in the February 2015 death of an 84-year-old Penngrove woman who was bound to a chair and shot in the head during a robbery in her home.

Prosecutors said Victor Silva, 29, faces 41 years to life in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 5 for the slaying of Olga Dinelli, a lifelong resident of the rural Rose Avenue ranch house where she was killed.

“This was a cold-hearted and senseless crime against a lifelong Sonoma County resident,” District Attorney Jill Ravitch said in a statement. “Hopefully this resolution will bring some closure to Ms. Dinelli’s family.”

Authorities said Silva and his wife, Stephanie Hill, ransacked Dinelli’s home and killed her before fleeing south, aided by an accomplice, John Bruno Martinez of Richmond, who rented a getaway car for the couple and ditched the car they had stolen from Dinelli.

Martinez ultimately was sentenced to two years in prison for being an accessory after the fact to murder and other offenses.

Silva and Hill, on the lam for just a few days, turned up on Interstate 10 in a remote area of eastern Riverside County and led police on a 100-mile pursuit into the Arizona desert, where Hill, 37, died in a shootout.

Authorities said the couple fired repeatedly at passers-by throughout the chase and opened fire on law enforcement personnel, as well, before Hill was shot and killed by a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy.

Silva was tried and convicted in Arizona for murder in his wife’s death under the felony murder rule, which holds that murder charges apply when someone is killed during a serious crime.

An Arizona judge sentenced him in that case to life in prison before his extradition to Sonoma County for charges in Dinelli’s death last November.

In addition to first-degree murder, Silva pleaded no contest Friday to first-degree robbery with a firearm enhancement. A no contest plea carries the same weight as a guilty plea.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.