Mauricio Rodriguez Silva: The California Killer Known as “The Monster”
Background and Early Life
Mauricio Rodriguez Silva was born on October 25, 1959, in Los Angeles, California. He was the son of a Mexican father and a Nicaraguan mother and reportedly experienced severe instability, abandonment, neglect, and abuse during his childhood. Silva was born with a cleft palate and was described as having physical abnormalities associated with excessive growth. He spent portions of his youth in Mexico and the United States, moving through unstable homes and foster-care placements.
Accounts of Silva’s childhood describe periods of extreme hunger and homelessness. He reportedly ran away while living in Mexico City and survived among other homeless children by scavenging for food and inhaling glue. He later said he had been exposed to sexual abuse and violence during his youth. Although these circumstances were presented by his attorneys as mitigating factors, they did not excuse the calculated and increasingly violent acts he committed as an adult.
The 1978 Killing of Troy Allison Covella
Silva’s known history of lethal violence began in 1978, when he shot a teenage acquaintance identified in records as Troy Allison Covella, whose surname has also appeared as Crovella in published accounts. The circumstances leading to the confrontation remain unclear. Silva claimed that Covella had fired at him first, but Silva responded by shooting the teenager repeatedly. Some accounts state that Covella was struck nine or more times.
Silva was arrested and initially faced a murder charge. He later entered a plea agreement under which the charge was reduced to voluntary manslaughter. He received a prison sentence of slightly more than five years and was incarcerated at Soledad State Prison in California. The precise calendar date of Covella’s death is not consistently available in public records, but the killing occurred in 1978 in Los Angeles County.
Release from Prison
Silva was released on parole from Soledad State Prison on May 7, 1984. Shortly afterward, he withdrew approximately $7,000 that had accumulated in a bank account, reportedly from Social Security benefits connected to his father’s death. He considered obtaining ranch work in the Palmdale and Newhall area but abandoned the plan.
Within three weeks of his release, Silva killed three teenagers in Los Angeles County. The victims included two vulnerable runaways whom he encountered while traveling and his own 17-year-old half-sister. The three killings occurred over a period of approximately ten days and involved a shotgun, strangulation, and a knife.
The Murder of Walter P. Sanders
Silva met 16-year-old Walter P. Sanders while traveling on a bus near Sylmar. Sanders was a runaway from Lompoc, California. Silva initially pretended to be in the military, but later admitted that he had recently left prison and was violating parole. The two discussed traveling together and committing robberies to support themselves.
Silva purchased a small station wagon and a shotgun. He and Sanders traveled through parts of California and briefly entered Arizona before returning. Around May 19, Sanders visited acquaintances in Lompoc and spoke with his mother. She gave him clothing and approximately $40. Sanders told her he expected to return in June after completing a job loading trucks.
According to Silva’s later confession, Sanders wanted to test the newly purchased shotgun. Silva drove him into a remote desert area in the Antelope Valley. After Silva fired the weapon, Sanders asked to handle it. Silva claimed that he did not trust Sanders, and an argument followed. Silva then used the shotgun against the unarmed teenager.
Sanders was shot five times. Investigators determined that he suffered wounds to the chest, face, back of the head, right side of the back, and rectal area. The evidence suggested that he was standing during the first shots and lying on the ground when the final shots were fired. His body was discovered on May 22, 1984, along a dirt road near the California Aqueduct in the Antelope Valley. Published accounts commonly place the killing on May 18, 1984.
The Murder of Monique Michelle Hilton
After killing Sanders, Silva returned to Los Angeles. Early one morning, he encountered 16-year-old Monique Michelle Hilton hitchhiking along Santa Monica Boulevard. Hilton was a runaway from Illinois who had traveled to Southern California. Accounts of the case state that she hoped to meet entertainer Michael Jackson.
Hilton told Silva that she was hungry and had no money. He purchased food and clothing for her and eventually allowed her to accompany him to the Lancaster and Palmdale area. They rented a motel room before leaving and traveling along an isolated dirt road in the Antelope Valley.
Silva became convinced that Hilton was concealing money from him. He demanded that she show him what she possessed and took the shotgun from the back seat of his station wagon. Hilton continued to insist that she had no money. Silva ordered her out of the vehicle. As she walked back toward the car after telling him to search her bag, Silva opened fire.
Hilton was shot four times with the shotgun. Her wounds involved her head, neck, chest, and back. Her badly decomposed body was found on May 28, 1984, on a dirt road in the Antelope Valley, after she had been dead for at least two days. Published case accounts generally identify May 25, 1984, as the date of her murder.
The Murder of Martha Kitzler
Silva’s final victim was his 17-year-old half-sister, Martha Kitzler. During the weekend of May 26 and May 27, 1984, Silva stayed at the Hollywood residence where Kitzler lived with relatives. Kitzler reportedly wanted Silva to leave and had told family members that he appeared jealous of her boyfriend, Flavio Alvarez.
On the morning of May 28, Kitzler sent Silva to purchase shampoo and conditioner. When he returned, she was alone. She again told him to leave the house. Silva became angry and accused her of treating him like a stranger. Kitzler reportedly told him that she did not care for him because he had wasted his life in prison.
Silva walked to his vehicle, retrieved a knife, and returned to the house after forming the intention to kill her. He attacked Kitzler in her bedroom, threw her onto the bed, slapped her, and strangled her with his hands. After she had been asphyxiated, he stabbed her repeatedly in the torso and neck. He also cut her throat. Medical evidence indicated that the stabbing injuries were inflicted after she had died.
Silva attempted to conceal what had happened by covering Kitzler’s body with clothing and a towel. He rinsed the knife and placed it in his car. He also searched her bedroom, apparently remembering that she had approximately $2,700 from selling her automobile, although the money remained beneath her mattress.
When Kitzler’s boyfriend arrived around noon, Silva turned on the shower to create the impression that she was bathing. He told Alvarez that Kitzler was in the shower and then drove away. Alvarez entered the bedroom after receiving no response and discovered her body on the bed. Police were immediately notified.
Known Victims
- Troy Allison Covella — Teenager killed in 1978 in Los Angeles County, California. Silva shot him approximately nine times. The precise date of death is not consistently available in public records. Silva pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
- Walter P. Sanders, 16 — Killed on or about May 18, 1984, in the Antelope Valley of Los Angeles County, California. His body was found near the California Aqueduct on May 22, 1984. He had been shot five times with a shotgun.
- Monique Michelle Hilton, 16 — Killed on or about May 25, 1984, along a dirt road in the Antelope Valley, Los Angeles County, California. Her body was discovered on May 28, 1984. She had been shot four times with a shotgun.
- Martha Kitzler, 17 — Killed on May 28, 1984, inside her Hollywood residence in Los Angeles, California. Silva strangled her and then inflicted multiple stab wounds to her torso and neck.
Surrender and Confession
After leaving Kitzler’s home, Silva telephoned a woman named Anita Rinker, with whom he had maintained a telephone friendship after accidentally calling her number several years earlier. He told Rinker that he had killed three people and described where the bodies had been left. She urged him to surrender.
At approximately 9:00 p.m. on May 28, 1984, Silva appeared at a sheriff’s substation in Templeton, located in San Luis Obispo County. He told Deputy Candy Marie Jones that he wanted to surrender and had killed three people. He also informed her that the weapons were inside his station wagon.
Deputies found a shotgun and a knife in the vehicle. Ballistics testing later established that the shotgun had fired shells recovered near the bodies of Walter Sanders and Monique Hilton. Silva was transferred to the custody of Los Angeles authorities and gave recorded statements on May 29 and May 30 in which he described the three killings.
Trial and Convictions
Silva did not dispute that he had killed Sanders, Hilton, and Kitzler. His defense concentrated on his mental condition, traumatic upbringing, limited intellectual functioning, and whether the killings had involved the level of planning required for first-degree murder.
A jury convicted him of second-degree murder for the killing of Walter Sanders and first-degree murder for the killings of Monique Hilton and Martha Kitzler. The jurors also found that Silva had personally used a shotgun against Sanders and Hilton and a knife against Kitzler. The multiple-murder special circumstance made him eligible for the death penalty.
The first penalty-phase jury was unable to agree on whether Silva should receive death or life imprisonment without parole. A second penalty proceeding was held, and the new jury returned a death verdict. Silva was formally sentenced to death in August 1986.
Appeals and Death Sentence
In 2001, the California Supreme Court upheld Silva’s murder convictions and the multiple-murder special-circumstance finding. However, the court reversed his death sentence because of serious errors during jury selection at the second penalty trial. The court concluded that the prosecutor had improperly excluded a prospective Latino juror based on ethnicity.
The reversal did not clear Silva of the murders. His convictions remained intact, and the ruling concerned only the punishment imposed during the penalty phase. Silva was later returned to death-row status following additional proceedings. California’s continuing moratorium on executions has prevented the state from carrying out death sentences.
Legacy of the Case
Mauricio Rodriguez Silva became known in some accounts as “The Monster,” a name reflecting the extreme violence inflicted on his young victims. His history demonstrates the danger posed by an offender whose first lethal attack resulted in a manslaughter sentence followed by eventual release. Only eleven days after leaving prison, he began the series of three killings that permanently ended his freedom.
The victims were all teenagers. Walter Sanders and Monique Hilton were runaways whose circumstances made them particularly vulnerable, while Martha Kitzler was Silva’s own half-sister and was attacked in what should have been the safety of her home. The shotgun used against Sanders and Hilton, Silva’s detailed confession, the physical evidence recovered from his vehicle, and his presence at Kitzler’s residence created an overwhelming case against him.
Although Silva’s attorneys described a childhood marked by poverty, abandonment, abuse, physical disabilities, and institutional neglect, the courts ultimately held him criminally responsible. His case remains one of California’s disturbing examples of a previously convicted killer who committed a rapid succession of murders almost immediately after returning to society.
