SAN JOSE — Just a few days into trial, a San Jose man pleaded no contest to murder, attempted murder and assault charges in a vicious, indiscriminate carjacking and stabbing rampage across the South Bay two years ago in a self-admitted “free for all” that killed three and left eight more people injured in his wake.

Kevin Parkourana, 33, of San Jose, entered the plea Thursday, in which he admitted to three murder counts and seven attempted murder counts for the June 1, 2023 crime spree, which Parkourana told investigators was fueled by voices in his head telling him to “go out and just kill random people.”

Parkourana will almost certainly spend the rest of his life behind bars: the murder pleas entail consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole, before accounting for seven separate life sentences for attempted murder as well as sentencing for assault with a deadly weapon and carjacking crimes.

“We couldn’t ask for a better result,” Deputy District Attorney Michael Gadeberg said in an interview. “Our view, based on what he had done on June 1, 2023 and what he had done in the past, is that the public would not be safe unless he spent the rest of his life in prison. That was achieved while sparing the survivors and next of kin from reliving the trauma of what he did that day.”

Trial proceedings for Parkourana began Monday, and the case was nearing jury selection when he entered his no-contest plea, which was made entirely of his own accord, without any plea agreement either between attorneys or with the court.

One of his defense attorneys alluded to his psychiatric issues — which court records show included a past “addiction” to torturing and killing small animals — in offering context for the plea.

“Kevin has extreme remorse for his actions on June 1, 2023. He was not in his right mind that day,” Deputy Public Defender Lara Wallman told this news organization Thursday. “By pleading to all the charges this morning, he wanted to accept full responsibility for his actions and save the victims, victims’ families and witnesses from the trauma of going through a jury trial.”

The crimes, now formally admitted to by the defendant, began around 3 p.m. on Kooser Road and Dellwood Way near his family home when Parkourana carjacked a man sitting in a parked Honda minivan, stabbing him multiple times after initially asking to use his phone. Parkourana took off with the minivan and drove to a Home Depot where he stole gloves, a knife and a hammer, then approached a man driving a Honda Pilot in the parking lot and gestured that the motorist had a flat rear tire.

Parkourana then grabbed at the steering wheel and stabbed the driver during an ensuing struggle, and when the victim tried to stay in the vehicle, Parkourana slammed the door on his hand, breaking his fingers. When a witness rushed over to help the motorist, Parkourana drove back around and hit the witness with the vehicle, sending him flying at least 10 feet before driving away.

About a mile west, Parkourana rear-ended a motorcyclist, spilling him onto the roadway. Then he traveled to the Pruneyard Shopping Center near the Campbell-San Jose border and in the parking lot he drove at a woman and slammed into the shopping cart she was pushing.

Parkourana made his way to downtown San Jose where about an hour after the start of the rampage, he rear-ended a motorist near 10th and East Santa Clara streets. He stabbed the man after he got out to survey the collision damage.

Ten minutes later, Parkourana was driving through a Walgreens parking lot off 16th Street when he drove into three people, killing San Jose residents Nguyen Pham, 72, and Phuc Pham, 71.

Milpitas Police are seen detaining Kevin Parkourana, a San Jose resident at Arizona Ave and Midwick Drive near Milpitas High School in Milpitas Calif., after two people were run over and killed and two others were critically injured in separate stabbings in San Jose, while a fifth person was stabbed to death in Milpitas — all apparently by the same suspect according to police. (Frame grab from video/ AIO Filmz) 

Further down the street, Parkourana hit a man riding a motorized scooter near Alum Rock. He finally stopped the stolen Honda Pilot in the parking lot of the Smart & Final on Jacklin Road in Milpitas and entered the store and picked up a bottle of vodka. He then walked past 26-year-old Milpitas resident Jiwanjot Singh Dhariwal before turning back and fatally stabbing him in the neck and back.

With responding police officers rushing to the shopping plaza, Parkourana ran off to a nearby residential street, ditched his gloves and his jacket — which still had the stolen Honda’s keys in it — and tossed the knife underneath a car he was hiding behind. Authorities say he then tried to trick officers closing in on him by walking to an adjacent home and feigning that he lived there, but was quickly detained and arrested.

Related Articles

In about-face, SJPD restores police shooting access to internal affairs

South Bay woman accused of burning Nativity scene at Marin church to undergo mental evaluation

Why did Cupertino spend more than $20,000 to investigate ex-city manager?

Surprise guilty plea in arson that killed San Jose business owner Chris Tran

San Jose police make arrests in gang-motivated shooting, assaults

In police interviews, Parkourana told detectives that voices in his head “were telling me they were like, there’s like a mass torture going on and all these people are like getting killed and stuff like that, even me. So there was like, just go do it, it’s a free-for-all, like have fun, basically.” He also said, “they were just telling me to go out and just kill random people, like, uh, goin’ out, roaming around the city and just killing people.”

Parkourana has a history of abusing drugs, including methamphetamine, and in the years prior to the killings committed apparent drug-influenced crimes including assault and constructing bombs at home. Both the court and prosecutors agreed to allow him to enter a court-monitored drug treatment program around 2021.

According to briefs submitted ahead of trial, Parkourana had undergone psychiatric evaluation to explore how his mental health issues and drug use could have affected his actions two years ago. In those previous police interviews, he suggested that there was no end in sight had he not been arrested.

“If I wasn’t stopped there by the police, I was gonna go all around the city,” he said.