VENTURA COUNTY ROUNDUP : Santa Paula : Death Penalty to Be Sought in ’98 Slaying

Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for Jose “Pepe” Castillo, the 21-year-old gang member charged with killing a Santa Paula store owner in 1998, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury announced Thursday.

Castillo is accused of shooting to death Mirna Regollar, a 25-year-old mother of two who was a nursing student at Ventura College.

Regollar was gunned down June 2, 1998, during what authorities described as a botched robbery attempt at her family’s Oak Street market in Santa Paula.

Regollar was shot in the head and back, and detectives believe there were two shooters. A second man was arrested in the case but later released for lack of evidence.

The grand jury indicted Castillo in July on charges of murder, attempted robbery and burglary and two special-circumstance allegations that the killing was committed during an attempted robbery and a burglary.

The special circumstances made Castillo eligible for the death penalty, and a jury need only find one of the two circumstances true for the death penalty to be recommended.

If sentenced to death, Castillo would become the second youngest death row inmate from Ventura County. Mark Scott Thornton was 20 when he was sentenced to death in 1995 for killing a nurse from Westlake.

Castillo is in jail without bail and awaiting sentencing in another murder case. Last month he admitted in Juvenile Court to the 1993 stabbing death of Ventura High School student Jesse Strobel.

In that case, Castillo faces four years in the California Youth Authority. At the time of the killing, Castillo was 15.