Sacto 9-1-1

By Bee Staff

The California Board of Parole Hearings has told a man convicted of a 1996 Sacramento road-rage killing that he must wait 10 years for another parole consideration, a board spokeswoman said.

The board also denied paroles for from three to five years for a couple of Sacramento area wife killers and a man who shot a stranger to death, said Margot Bach, spokeswoman for the Board of Parole Hearings.

The hearings were held last month.

Thongsanh Phongsavat, 34, was denied a parole consideration for 10 years, Bach said.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge sentenced Phongsavat to 18-year-to-life in prison on April 26, 1996 for shooting and killing a motorist in a driving dispute on Interstate 80, The Bee reported.

Killed during the rush hour as he exited Interstate 80 at Northgate Boulevard on Oct. 10, 1995, was Brit C. Bahn, 24. Bahn and his brother, Chad, 25, were driving from Woodland to a store to return a television.

Bahn was hit in the temple with a single rifle shot fired from a Honda in which Phongsavat was riding as a passenger.

The incident began on Interstate 5 when the Honda was tailgating the truck, and the occupants became embroiled in an exchange of gestures and racial slurs.

Ronald LeRoy Koehler, 66, was denied a parole consideration for three years.

A Placer County Superior Court judge sentenced Koehler to life in prison in June 1982 for murdering his wife, whose body was found in September 1978, a few weeks after the couple separated, according to records and Bee reports.

Koehler, a Placer High School teacher, had a passport and an airline reservation to New Zealand when he was arrested.

Ralph Kendall Blasingame IV, 34, was denied a parole consideration for three years.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge sentenced Blasingame to 19 years to life in prison for fatally shooting an 18-year-old stranger in a drunken act of bravado, The Bee reported.

Blasingame killed Sean Michael Renfro with a single bullet fired from 100 feet at a car leaving a river party late at night on Oct. 16, 1993.

According to testimony, someone had shouted an obscenity. Blasingame, who was standing on the road, mistakenly thought the passing Honda was filled with people he and his friends had tangled with earlier that night. He claimed to have fired wildly into the night, never knowing he hit anything.

Alfred Lawrence Brooks, 40, was denied a parole consideration for five years.

An El Dorado County Superior Court judge sentenced Brooks to life in prison for killing his estranged wife on April 23, 1988, according to records and Bee reports.

Brooks shot Roberta Woody, 21, twice in the head while she held their child. The child was not injured.

Inmates denied paroles can request a rehearing every three years if they can show there has been a change in circumstances in his case or that new information is available.