Man Arrested in Teen’s 1993 Slaying

Six years after the slaying of 17-year-old Jesse Strobel shocked this beach community, police arrested a Santa Paula gang member Tuesday on suspicion of fatally stabbing the Ventura High School athlete while trying to rob him as he 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 killed in a botched robbery last June, police said.

Ventura and Santa Paula police arrested Jose “Pepe” Castillo and Alfredo Hernandez, both 21, after rousting them from bed in separate Santa Paula houses Tuesday morning. 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.

Neither man has a local criminal record, except for Castillo’s 1997 conviction for drunk driving, court records show. But Hernandez was charged with felony robbery in 1997 in Los Angeles County.

Ventura police fanned out Tuesday to confront three other potential suspects in the Strobel case, interviewing them at home or at work in Los Angeles, Moorpark and Santa Paula.

Police said information from all of them was consistent and supported the arrest of Castillo, who investigators originally interviewed about two months after Strobel was killed in 1993.

“This is truly an exhilarating day for all of us,” said Sgt. Bob Anderson, the lead Ventura police investigator, at a news conference attended by the Strobel family and officers who have worked the case for years. “This has been such a long struggle. Call it a victory.”

The slaying was never far from police officers’ minds, Anderson said. A photo of Jesse Strobel has hung for years in the lobby of the Ventura Police Department.

Castillo and Hernandez are being held in County Jail without bail. Prosecutors said they worked closely with the Ventura and Santa Paula police departments on the investigations and will decide what charges to file within a few days. One key decision will be whether to try Castillo as an adult, since he was barely 15 when Strobel was killed.

The break in both cases came in late November, when a source told Santa Paula Police Sgt. Carlos Juarez that Castillo and Hernandez--early suspects in the Regollar killing--had committed the homicide, police said. The source, whom police would not identify, also implicated Castillo in the Strobel slaying, they said.

“Perhaps he had a feeling these were dangerous people and it was time to take them off the street,” said Santa Paula Chief Walt Adair. The source is not a crime suspect, police said.

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Investigators used a variety of tactics to follow that lead, according to Adair and Ventura Police Chief Mike Tracy. They would not confirm that sources working with investigators wore electronic recording devices. But, Adair said, “We used everything available.”

For Jesse Strobel’s family, the arrests brought tears of happiness, renewed pain, and relief that Jesse’s killing may finally be solved.

“I, for one, had given up, and they [investigators] didn’t,” said John Strobel IV, Jesse’s father. “It’s just a good feeling to know the system works and justice is going to be served.”

“This is a turning point in our lives,” said John Strobel III, Jesse’s grandfather. “Losing Jesse was the hardest thing this family has ever been through. It’s been a festering sore for six years.”

Grandmother Donna Strobel said police notified the family Tuesday morning about a break in the case, and indicated that Castillo had confessed.

Anderson said he wouldn’t go that far.

“I’m not going to say there was a confession,” Anderson said. “But all of our statements from suspects at the [crime] scene are consistent. And we interviewed Castillo and three others we believe to be involved.

“When people do things that are foolish,” he added, “sometimes they’ll talk several years later.”

According to Tracy, Strobel was killed after a carload of young men saw him walking to his mother’s home near Ventura High School at 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 29, 1993, and decided to rob him. The men jumped Strobel, but he fought back furiously, Tracy said. “Jesse fought off the attackers until Jose Castillo stabbed him with a knife,” Tracy said.

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Castillo did not know Strobel, Anderson said, but it’s possible one of the other attackers did.

Strobel collapsed on a neighbor’s stoop and drowned in his blood.

Memories of that night are still devastating, said Strobel family members.

“It’s good to have closure,” said Claudia Moore, Jesse’s mother. “But it’s difficult to deal with the loss again. When you lose a child, you lose your hopes and dreams.”

The death of Strobel--a football player with a clean criminal record--prompted a spate of anti-gang rallies by outraged parents. Three weeks before the stabbing, Jesse was allegedly threatened by gang members who had beaten his best friend. Seven-hundred people attended one meeting.

Police and Jesse’s father insisted for years they knew who the killer was.

They admitted Tuesday that they were wrong.

“It’s humbled me tremendously,” Jesse’s father said. “They weren’t the killers. And I apologize for jumping to the wrong conclusion.”

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Mirna Regollar’s family also greeted the arrests with relief.

“It is some comfort to know that no other mother will go through what I’ve gone through,” said Regollar’s mother, Angela Escobedo of Oxnard.

Regollar, a mother of two working her way through Ventura College, was fatally shot while tending her family’s small convenience store in central Santa Paula.

Police initially had few leads. But two men in their late teens or early 20s were seen fleeing Junior’s Market in the 500 block of Oak Street after Regollar was shot in the head and chest.

No money was taken from the open cash register, and the previous day’s receipts remained untouched in the store.

“We’ve been working the case ever since, checking all possible leads,” said Santa Paula Police Cmdr. Robert Gonzales. “And we believe we came up with some real good information. We broke the case by keeping our nose to the grindstone.”