German tourist murderer granted parole

Tuesday, June 20, California’s full parole board granted parole to Thongxay Nilakout, who was convicted of the murder of German tourist Gisela Pflegger during a robbery at Indian Vista Point in 1994, in which he also shot her husband Klaus three times. Gov. Gavin Newsom recommended the board reconsider the December 2022 decision of a two-member panel to grant parole, but the board instead reaffirmed it.

Nilakout’s release, and return to Banning, is now “imminent,” according to Birte Pflegger, daughter of Gisela and Klaus. Nilkout’s parole plans state that he intends to drive a truck for a brother who still lives in Banning. In prison, he earned a GED and completed a truck driving theory class.

Pflegger has spoken to the press many times since then, and the Associated Press published an essay of hers discussing her experience at the 2010 and 2015 parole hearings for Xou Yang, who provided the weapon and drove the car the day of the murder. She spoke of her 200-mile trip to Avenal State Prison in King’s County (before the day of Zoom hearings) and the futility of her effort in the face of “A federal mandate to reduce the number of inmates in California prisons …” Pflegger continued to oppose Nilakout’s parole, speaking to the press and initiating a letter-writing campaign that apparently got the governor’s attention.

Part of Pflegger’s effort included reviewing the inmate’s parole plans. The board reviews over a dozen cases in a single day, and she told the Crier, “The paper records for this case alone were well over a thousand pages. There is no way the commissioners could have read every word or every page … The commissioners do not verify the parole plans …”

Nilakout was 17 at the time of the murder. He was originally sentenced to life without parole, but a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment, although it left judges the discretion to issue such terms in murder cases. He is now 46. This was his second parole hearing.

Nilakout’s accomplices, Khamchan Bret Ketsouvannasane and Yang, were both 19 at the time. Yang recieved 25 years to life and has been paroled. Ketsouvannasane, who struggled with Gisela before Nilakout shot her, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Pflegger has told reporters that she has no intention of telling her now-91-year-old father about the release. Klaus returned to the U.S. from Germany to testify at the trials of the three men in 1994. His testimony was made difficult not only because he spoke little English, but because he had been shot in the mouth and lost part of his tongue.

The story of this crime and the events that led up to it was the subject of a book, “Culture Shock: Based on the True Story of the Tragic Murder of Gisela Pfleger,” by Ross R. Koepp. There is a memorial with a bronze plaque set in a boulder at Vista Point, dedicated to the memory of Gisela.