Prosecutors offer motive in Daly City killing

The young couple would be moving to Las Vegas. For her, it was the last day of work at San Francisco International Airport. For him, it was a matter of picking her up and heading home to pack.

But as Mark Mangaccat backed into their Daly City driveway last week to begin packing, prosecutors said, a man approached and fired five to six shots into the car. Mangaccat died on the scene, but for some reason his girlfriend — the mother of their 3-yearold child — was left unharmed.

It now appears the suspected shooter in the April 25 slaying was an obsessed suitor.

Kevin B. Prasad, a 31-yearold airport security guard for Covenant Aviation Security, could face the death penalty for the shooting, according to San Mateo County prosecutors, who accused him of seeking out a relationship with the victim’s girlfriend, asking her to dump her boyfriend and then killing Mangaccat when he couldn’t get his way.

Prasad, Mangaccat, and Mangaccat’s girlfriend — who has not been named — met in 2014 when they all worked at the airport, said Tricia Povah, a San Mateo County deputy district attorney.

Though the suspected shooter most recently worked for Covenant, a federal contractor tasked with screening passengers and baggage at San Francisco’s airport, it’s not clear if any of the three worked for the company at that time. Mangaccat had been out on medical leave from an unspecified position at the airport since December 2017, prosecutors said.

San Francisco International Airport referred questions to county prosecutors, and Covenant did not immediately return requests for comment.

The day Mangaccat died, prosecutors said, Prasad and Donovan Matthew Rivera, a 25-year-old Hayward resident, followed the couple to their home. Rivera allegedly acted as the getaway driver while Prasad was identified as the gunman.

At Monday’s arraignment, Prasad, a South San Francisco resident, was charged with murder, intentional and personal discharge of a firearm causing death, assault with a semiautomatic firearm and shooting into an occupied motor vehicle.

A special allegation of lying in wait makes Prasad eligible for capital punishment, Povah said.

Rivera, his alleged accomplice, could also face the death penalty if found guilty on charges of murder with an enhancement of lying in wait. Other charges against Rivera include assault with a semiautomatic firearm, shooting into an occupied motor vehicle and gun enhancements on an aiding and abetting theory, Povah said.

Rivera did not seem to know the victim, she added.

Police arrested the pair at Rivera’s home in Hayward on April 26. Although the victim’s girlfriend did not see Prasad shoot into the vehicle, Povah said, she “indicated there’d been some weird behavior from him,” drawing investigators’ attention.

Prasad made no admissions before he was charged, Povah said, but Rivera provided law enforcement with a statement. Both men were being held without bail Wednesday at Maguire Correctional Facility in Redwood City.

Private defenders for Rivera and Prasad have not been assigned yet, officials said.