A judge on Friday sentenced a Gardena man to 286 years to life in prison for murdering a woman and raping several others during videotaped, bondage-style sexual encounters in South Bay motel rooms and his one-time Riverside County bedroom.
Kevon Takashi Ross, 33, kept his face hidden behind a sheet of paper for much of an emotionally raw sentencing hearing, avoiding looking at his victims, their family members or a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. The judge described the proceedings as the most difficult trial he has ever witnessed.
In late May, an Inglewood jury spent fewer than four hours deliberating before finding Ross guilty of the murder of 27-year-old Kellie Marie Nolan and two dozen other felony charges. Nolan was found unresponsive in a Gardena motel room on Dec. 12, 2015, after Ross, during a sexual encounter, wrapped her in cellophane and duct tape from her abdomen to her hair, including over her mouth and nose.
In total, Ross was found guilty of 25 felony counts, including one count each of first-degree murder and sodomy of an unconscious victim, eight counts of rape of an unconscious person, seven countsof forcible rape, six counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object and two counts of injuring a girlfriend.
Detectives in the course of their investigation found graphic videos Ross recorded of his having sex with seemingly unconscious women. Some of the victims told police that they hadn’t known how far Ross had taken their sexual encounter before they were shown videos he had recorded of them without their knowledge.
Ross described Nolan’s death as a bondage sex-act gone wrong, and the other sexual encounters as consensual. Prosecutors argued they showed a consistent pattern of Ross introducing women to bondage, combining the sex acts with alcohol, then when his partners were inebriated taking their encounters to a dangerous level.
Prior to Friday’s hearing, one of the women Ross was convicted of raping wrote a letter to the court describing him as an emotionally manipulative man who pushed her to place her trust in him in order to prove her love. A second victim spoke during the hearing, describing the pain of learning months later how Ross had raped her after police found a recording of the sexual assault.
“Something horrible happened to me, and I went almost a year without knowing,” the woman said. The Southern California News Group is not naming the woman, in order to avoid identifying a sexual assault victim.
Nolan’s parents recalled her as a “bright light” in the family, a kind, gentle, trusting woman who was devoted to her friends and who loved to dance.
“Her true self always shone through,” said Ann Nolan, Kellie Nolan’s mother. “She was never judgmental and always saw the best in those around her.”
Greg Nolan, Kellie Nolan’s father, said Ross – whom he described as “evil” – cared about no one but himself.
“Any man who would do what you did to those defenseless ladies – you are a coward,” Greg Nolan told Ross.
Nolan’s mother, Ann Nolan, thanked jurors, a handful of whom returned to court to watch the sentencing, as well as the other sexual assault victims who testified in the trial.
“You stood up to evil and you won,” Ann Nolan told one of the victims, who was watching from the courtroom gallery. “Your testimony, along with all the others, has helped put a monster away for the rest of his life.”
Judge Scott Millington said that in his nearly 30-year career in the criminal justice system he had never seen anything as brutal and demeaning as the evidence in the Ross trial.
“Mr. Ross, what you took from those women can never be replaced,” the judge said. “You took it in the most sadistic way imaginable, and you took it for your pleasure.”
Ross, a former UC Riverside student, did not address the judge during the hearing. A small group of his family and friends, including a woman who began dating him during his incarceration, sat near him, one of whom sobbed loudly when the judge announced the sentence.
City News Service contributed to this report.
