Liberty Street Killers Sentenced to Life Without Parole in Santa Barbara Court

Carpinteria gang members Angel Varela, 31, and Oscar Trujillo-Gutierrez, 29, who were convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of two Santa Barbara teenagers, were sentenced Thursday to lifetime prison terms without the possibility of parole. 

The January 2021 shooting took place at the intersection of Liberty and South Soledad streets on Santa Barbara’s lower Eastside, with Varela walking up and opening fire at a group of people that had gathered for a Sunday party. 

Angel Castillo, 17, and Omar Montiel-Hernandez, 18, were both fatally struck in the back as they fled. Two others were seriously injured.

A juvenile, who drove Varela and Trujillo-Gutierrez to the scene and whose identity has not been publicly released, was prosecuted in Santa Barbara County Juvenile Court. He was convicted on two counts of premeditated and deliberate first-degree murder. His sentence is pending.

All three were also found guilty of committing the murders for the benefit of their “Carpas” street gang, a small but violent clique in the otherwise quiet beach town of Carpinteria. They had driven north that day to “hunt” members of their rival Eastside gang, prosecutors said. When they were later arrested, police seized three assault-style rifles, three semi-automatic handguns, eight bulletproof vests, and more than 2,400 rounds of ammunition.

The attack marked one of the deadliest gang-related incidents in the city in years. The case moved slowly through the court system, delayed in part by the pandemic and the complexity of the prosecution. Among other arrests, Varela’s girlfriend, Jasmine Ochoa, was charged as an accessory for hiding evidence and sentenced to jail time.

During the COVID lockdowns, the Eastside was experiencing a spike in robberies, assaults, and teenagers running away from home. With schools closed and parents struggling to stay employed, tensions were giving rise to violence. Just a week prior, a juvenile had been stabbed in a downtown brawl.

For many Eastside residents, the spasm of unrest highlighted longstanding frustrations over poverty, limited opportunities for young people, and a sense that their neighborhood’s struggles were often overlooked by the broader Santa Barbara community. 

Initially, authorities described the shooting victims as members of a “rival gang,” but their family members vehemently denied the characterization and insisted they were not associated with gangs.

Montiel-Hernandez had recently graduated from Santa Barbara High School and was “a great big brother who looked out for his younger siblings,” his family said.

Castillo, a senior at Santa Barbara High, was remembered in 2021 by his mother, Rita, for his wide smile and sweet disposition. Because of COVID, she and her husband were not allowed in the hospital the night he was killed. They only learned of his death when one of the two people who’d been wounded texted his own mother waiting with the couple outside the emergency room: “Angel didn’t make it.”

In the weeks that followed, both Rita and the police worried about a possible chain reaction of gang retaliation. “I know the gangs are just waiting for the cops to pull back so they can get revenge,” she said at the time. 

“Angel was an innocent in this, and he got killed,” she said. “Look, nobody wants these guys more than I do, but killing them isn’t going to bring Angel or Omar back. It will just mean more innocents get killed. I want them arrested, tried, and convicted. That’s what I want.”