Santa Barbara County District Attorney John T. Savrnoch announced that Judge Kristy Imel sentenced Aloysius James to the maximum sentence allowed by law of life without the possibility of parole. A jury returned a verdict on February 27, 2026 of guilty of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of murder in the commission of the rape of thirty year-old Ofelia Sandoval, who was killed on September 18, 1988, in Santa Maria, California.
Ofelia Sandoval was discovered strangled to death, on the floor of her home on the evening of September 18, 1988. Santa Maria Police Officers vigorously investigated her death in 1988 and collected countless pieces of evidence. Her death was ruled a homicide. Despite a valiant effort to solve her murder, the case went cold in 1989.
Over the years many different SMPD detectives worked on the murder of Ofelia. In the early 2000’s the Department of Justice used technology to develop a DNA profile of an unknown male on items found in Ofelia’s room…