Gang Member Held in 1993 Slaying of Youth
VENTURA — Six years after the slaying of 17-year-old Jesse Strobel, police arrested a Santa Paula gang member Tuesday on suspicion of fatally stabbing the Ventura High School athlete during an attempted robbery as the youth walked home from his father’s pizza parlor.
The same man and another gang member are also suspects in the slaying of Mirna Regollar, a 25-year-old Santa Paula shopkeeper who was killed in a botched robbery last June, police said.
Ventura and Santa Paula police arrested Jose Castillo, 21, and Alfredo Hernandez, 22, in separate Santa Paula houses early Tuesday. Castillo was identified as the prime suspect in the Strobel killing and a suspected accomplice in the Regollar homicide. Hernandez is suspected of fatally shooting Regollar, police said.
The men are being held without bail.
The break in both cases came in late November, when an unidentified source told Santa Paula Police Sgt. Carlos Juarez that Castillo and Hernandez--early suspects in the Regollar killing--had committed the homicide, officials said. The source also implicated Castillo in the Strobel slaying, they said.
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