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A Riverside County judge sentenced John Suchan Chong, a 71-year-old former handyman, to 136 years to life in prison Friday for a 2009 shooting rampage at a Korean Christian retreat near Temecula, Calif., that killed one neighbor and injured three others, according to court records and news reports.

A jury convicted Chong on Feb. 17, 2011, of one count of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder, along with firearm and great-bodily-injury allegations. Riverside County Superior Court Judge Mark Mandio imposed the maximum sentence at the Southwest Justice Center in French Valley, telling Chong he had not accepted responsibility for the attack.

Chong opened fire on the night of April 7, 2009, at the Kkottongnae Retreat Center off Highway 79, where he had lived and worked as a volunteer since 2002. He first went to the home of neighbors Chuneui "Scholastica" Yun and her husband, Jongpil "Benedict" Yun, both 58, who had invited him to dinner.

Authorities said Chong told the couple they were going to die, then shot them both. Chuneui Yun died at the scene, and her husband survived a gunshot wound to the chest.

Chong then walked to a nearby cottage belonging to Joseph and Juliana Kim, then 69 and 65, intending to shoot them as well, sheriff's investigators said. He fired three shots but hit no one before the Kims fought back, and Joseph Kim disarmed Chong during a violent, hand-to-hand struggle in which Chong was beaten with a dumbbell. The Kims suffered facial injuries but were expected to recover.

Riverside County sheriff's dispatchers fielded 911 calls from the retreat in Korean and relied on a telephone interpreter service to communicate with callers as deputies raced to pinpoint the shooter's location, dispatch recordings show. Most residents at the retreat, run by the Congregation of the Sisters of Jesus, a Korean Catholic social-service order, spoke limited English.

Chong, who moved to the U.S. from Korea in 1977, told a probation officer he believed the Yuns and Kims were conspiring against him and resented them for acting "as if they were the leaders of the community" because they spoke fluent English while he worked constantly as the retreat's maintenance man. He testified at trial that he had intended only to threaten the couples into leaving the retreat and did not mean to kill anyone.

Prosecutors said the Kims later moved back to Korea, and Jongpil Yun and his daughter did not attend the sentencing, saying it remained too difficult to discuss.