Grand Jury: Castillo admitted Regollar murder to former girlfriend and others

Jose “Pepe” Castillo just might have gotten away with murder if he hadn’t revealed to a former girlfriend and others that he and another Santa Paulan had shot an Oxnard woman to death during a botched robbery last year, according to testimony to the Ventura County Grand Jury. Castillo, a 21-year-old Santa Paula gangmember, is accused of murdering Mirna Regollar, a 25-year-old mother of two and a nursing student who owned with her husband a tiny Santa Paula based market where she was shot to death on June 2, 1998.Another Santa Paula resident, Alfredo “Freddy” Hernandez, also 21, is suspected of being the second gunman: Regollar was shot twice, once in the head and again in the back of the shoulder before the two gunman fled Junior’s Market on Oak Street. . .they left behind about $500 split between a bank bag under the counter and the open cash register.Castillo’s former girlfriend, Shana Rene Flores, was considered a hostile witness and was subpoenaed; she told the Grand Jury in July that Castillo admitted Regollar’s murder and said Hernandez fired at the woman first. . .although Hernandez was arrested in April he was subsequently released due to a lack of evidence.The Grand Jury indicted Castillo for Regollar’s murder, robbery and special circumstances of robbery killing during a robbery and killing during a burglary that could make him eligible for the death sentence.