Murder charge OK’d in Penngrove slaying

Olga Dinelli was standing in the garage of her Penngrove home on Feb. 25, 2015 when the last two people she would ever see walked up to her wearing masks and carrying guns.

They forced the 84-year-old woman into her Rose Avenue house, bound her to a chair and placed a pillowcase over her head, securing it around her neck with an elastic bandage.

The suspects, later identified by detectives as Stephanie Hill, 37 and Victor Silva, 29, both of Marin County, ransacked the home, grabbing jewelry, collectible coins and $10,000 in cash.

As they were about to take off in Dinelli’s red Lexus, Hill turned to Silva and asked, “Are we going to leave a witness?” Detective Gary Freitas testified Monday at Silva’s preliminary hearing.

Silva, who was wearing a Joker mask, responded: “You do what you’ve got to do. I don’t want to know about it,” before he walked out onto the porch, Freitas said.

“That’s when he heard a gunshot,” Freitas testified.

Moments later, Silva told detectives, Hill emerged with a gun in her hand, Freitas said.

Dinelli was found dead in the chair the next day with a single bullet wound to the head.

The gruesome discovery touched off a statewide manhunt that ended days later and hundreds of miles away in the Arizona desert.

After the couple rented a different car, Riverside County deputies spotting their vehicle and chased them along Interstate 10 with Hill shooting at them from a passenger window. The couple crashed after rolling over spike strips just across the state line and Hill was shot dead when she got out and brandished a gun. Silva was caught, tried and convicted of Hill’s death in a La Paz County, Ariz. courtroom.

Now, almost two years to the day after Dinelli was slain, Silva is back in Sonoma County to face charges in her killing. After hearing testimony in the case, Judge Dana Simonds ruled Monday he could be tried for murder, kidnapping, robbery and burglary - charges carrying life in prison.

Even though evidence suggests he did not pull the trigger, a jury could still find Silva guilty of first-degree murder because Dinelli was killed during the commission of a crime he was allegedly participating in.

“This is classic felony murder,” prosecutor Brian Staebell told the judge.

Detective Freitas’ testimony capped the more than two-day hearing in which the Richmond man who rented the couple a getaway car, another friend who was renting storage space at Dinelli’s ranch and other detectives took the stand.

Freitas said it appeared Silva and Hill arrived at Dinelli’s home Feb. 24, 2015 - the day before the slaying - to drop off belongings in a barn rented by Alex Stock of Fairfax. Instead of leaving, the two spent the night in the barn, emerging the next morning to rob Dinelli.

They fled the Bay Area in the rental car, heading south through the desert before being identified by an all-points bulletin. Hill was shot and killed by deputies Feb. 28.

After his arrest in Arizona, Silva told detectives he didn’t shoot Dinelli, Freitas said. However, he didn’t have sympathy for her because he assumed, incorrectly, she had been involved in some wrongdoing with Stock, Freitas said.

“He told me quite frankly he didn’t care about the woman,” Freitas testified. “If she died, God bless her.”

You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 707-568-5312 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ppayne.