Gang Member Gets Life Term in ’98 Slaying

Santa Paula gang member Jose “Pepe” Castillo 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.

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. Castillo had earlier admitted 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 Castillo to serve 3 1/2 years in a youth jail for that crime. Instead, he will now be sent to adult prison to serve the life sentence in Regollar’s death.

Regollar’s husband, Eligio Regollar, who looked down while Judge Ken Riley sentenced Castillo, did not speak during the hearing. But Mirna Regollar’s mother, Angela Escobedo, said later 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 the Regollars’ 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 and believe Castillo’s punishment is long overdue.

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

Jesse Strobel’s mother, Claudia Moore, said she was pleased to see Castillo finally sentenced for his crimes. “I’m glad he’s going to be behind bars for the rest of his life,” she said. “He deserves to be.”

Castillo, who was put in protective custody after testifying against his accomplice in the Regollar shooting, listened to his sentence from an adjacent holding cell rather than entering the Ventura courtroom.

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,” Farley told the judge.

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

“In light of his cooperation, the people withdraw their intent to seek the death penalty,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Don Glynn told the judge. “I feel justice has been served.”

Castillo testified during Hernandez’s murder trial that the pair entered Junior’s Market in central Santa Paula planning to get money to pay off a drug dealer. But when Regollar was seen pressing a silent alarm, Castillo said, he shot her in the back and Hernandez shot her in the head.

Farley said she believes her client’s life is in jeopardy because of that testimony, which led to Hernandez’s conviction and life sentence. “I think his life is in danger,” she said. “My job now is to make sure he is safe.”

She declined to specify how Castillo will be protected and whether he will be sent to a prison outside the state.

Farley also said Castillo has become very religious since his incarceration and has attempted to become a different person. “He is as sorry as anyone I’ve ever represented,” she said.

Regollar, who also studied nursing at Ventura College, was stocking shelves when the two men entered her family’s small store, ordered her to open the cash register and then shot her.

Five years earlier, Castillo was 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 with a knife, authorities said.

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

Castillo was arrested in April 1999 in the Strobel killing, and indicted two months later by the grand jury in connection with Regollar’s death. He is now in Ventura County Jail pending his transfer to prison.