Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Killing Woman in Robbery

A Santa Paula gang member was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing a young mother during a botched robbery of her convenience store nearly three years ago.

Several family members of another victim of Jose “Pepe” Castillo said at the hearing that his punishment is long overdue.

Castillo, 23, pleaded guilty last year to shooting Mirna Regollar on June 2, 1998, while he and a friend were trying to rob her family-owned store. He had earlier admitted to stabbing high school football player Jesse Strobel on Jan. 29, 1993, as the teenager walked home from his father’s seaside pizzeria.

Because Castillo was barely 15 when he killed Strobel, a Juvenile Court judge ordered him to serve 3 1/2 years in a youth jail for that crime.

For Regollar’s death, he will be sent to prison for life.

Regollar’s mother, Angela Escobedo, said later that she was relieved.

“We feel a little better because they have put him away and he isn’t going to get out,” said Escobedo, who is helping to raise Regollar’s children, ages 7 and 11. “It’s hard for her children. They ask about her all the time.”

Members of the Strobel family say they, too, have found it difficult to cope.

“It’s been a long eight years that we have waited for this,” said Jackson Strobel, Jesse’s 18-year-old brother. “My family is glad to see some of this come to a close.”

Deputy Public Defender Jean Farley read from a statement written by Castillo apologizing to the victims’ families and asking for forgiveness.

“He wishes there was something he could do to make things like they were,” she told the judge.

Even though Castillo could have been sent to death row, prosecutors agreed to a life sentence in exchange for his guilty plea and his testimony against former friend Alfredo Hernandez, an accomplice in the killing. Castillo also agreed to waive his right to future appeals.

Castillo testified during Hernandez’ murder trial that the pair entered Junior’s Market in central Santa Paula planning to get money to pay off a drug dealer.

When Regollar pressed a silent alarm, Castillo said, he shot her in the back and Hernandez shot her in the head.

Five years earlier, Castillo had been among a carload of men who saw Jesse Strobel walking near Ventura High School and decided to rob him.

When Strobel tried to fight off his attackers, Castillo stabbed him, authorities said.

Both crimes were unsolved until late 1998, when an informant told police he knew who had committed them. The informant wore a recording device to get a confession from Castillo, and then testified against Hernandez.