Teenager’s Death Evokes Memories of 1993 Slaying

It’s all too terribly familiar.

A fresh-faced high school athlete killed just as he was becoming a man. The shock of friends and classmates. Vows that the police will spare no cost to track down the killer.

For John Strobel, whose 17-year-old son, Jesse, was stabbed to death more than four years ago, news this week of the death 16-year-old James “Jake” Bush brought back the pain of his loss.

“It turned my stomach when I first heard about it,” Strobel said Thursday. “It hit home real quick. I thought, my God, there were a lot of similarities. . . . The tears are coming right now just thinking about it.”

Jake Bush--a track team co-captain and scholastic standout-- was fatally stabbed Tuesday after coming home with his mother and stumbling upon a burglar.

Jake’s mother, Gail Shirley, was on the phone with police when the attack occurred and was not able to identify her son’s attacker, and no one saw the assailant flee.

But police continue to look for a teenager who was seen knocking on doors near Jake’s home shortly before he was killed. The teen in question has not been declared a suspect.

Police released a composite sketch of the youth described as a clean-shaven Latino, about 5 feet, 6 inches tall, with a slim build and close-cropped black hair.

“There really isn’t anything new,” Ventura Lt. Don Arth said Thursday.

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Police have been fielding calls from people, but have yet to turn up any solid leads, Arth said.

“We’ve even gotten calls from out of state, which is good,” he said. “I think the public really responds to this kind of case.”

The crime, like the killing of Jesse Strobel, has touched Ventura residents in a way that other homicides in the city have not.

Promising young high school boys from good families killed just as they were budding into manhood.

The attack on Jake--in his home on a quiet Montalvo neighborhood street--and the attack on Jesse--on North Catalina Street as he walked home from his father’s pizza parlor-- disturb the community’s basic sense of security.

“It’s not just that it could be your son or daughter,” said Strobel. “It could have been you.”

Like Jake, Jesse was a well-liked athlete and smart youth with a good future.

“I think Bill Cosby said it all when he said he lost a hero when his son was killed,” John Strobel said. “Jesse was a sweet kid--I think from everything I’ve heard that Jake was a sweet kid too--and he was my hero.”

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Jesse liked the saxophone and played defensive end on the Ventura High School football team.

He was stabbed on the night of Jan. 29, 1993.

Police found him curled up on the front stoop of a home, and rushed him to the hospital. He died on the operating room table a short time later, Strobel said.

An exhaustive police investigation followed.

Detectives were able to narrow the search down to one suspect, but they have not been able to get a witness to testify against the man.

Like the investigation of Jesse’s death, Police Chief Richard Thomas said Jake’s case was personal.

“If ever there was one, this was an absolutely innocent victim,” Thomas said Tuesday after Jake’s death. “He was somebody I would have been proud to have had as a son.”

The Ventura Police Department has one of the highest success rates in the county for solving homicides. Of the 22 homicides since 1992, only five cases remain unsolved. Jake’s is the second homicide so far this year in the city.

Jake’s and Jesse’s slayings both weigh heavily on detectives, officials said.

“You can relate the two,” said Arth, who heads up the team of detectives working on Jake’s homicide. “Two young lives all the sudden ended. . . . They were both good kids, pretty active in their schools, and never really got into trouble.”

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It is the randomness, the sense that the victims were each innocent, and did not bring the violence down upon themselves that really seems to hit home, Arth said.

“I think that’s why we’ve gotten so many calls from the public, and so many people responding,” he said.

He compared the cases to that of 65-year-old Mildred Wilson, who was killed last year during an alleged robbery and carjacking at a Ventura shopping mall.

Jake was killed in his home. Jesse was killed while walking home on a quiet neighborhood street.

“Those kinds of cases really affect people,” Arth said. “People not involved in drugs or gangs or associating with those types of people who become victims, and in seconds everybody’s lives change.”

On Thursday, Jesse’s family felt compelled to reach out to Jake’s family, but also did not want to intrude on their mourning, so his grandfather wrote a letter. He ended the letter with a quote from the novelist Ernest K. Gann:

“Imagine you are standing on a shore. In front of you a great ship spreads her white sails and heads for the deep blue ocean. She is a strong ship in both mast and spar and as she slowly becomes but a speck where the blue sky and the ocean meet, some one beside you says, ‘Well, well, she’s gone.’ Gone? Gone where. From your sight that’s all. She is still just as strong in mast and spar as she was when she left your shore, still just as wide in beam and able to navigate the roughest seas. And while there is someone at your side saying, ‘She’s gone,’ there are other eyes watching her come and ready to take up the glad shout, ‘Here she comes.’ ”

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FYI

Formal services for James “Jake” Bush are scheduled for today and Saturday. The family has planned for a viewing of the body today from 4 to 8 p.m. at Ted Mayr funeral Home, 3150 Loma Vista Road. Funeral services will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at the same address. There are no graveside services planned.