A 21-year-old man who admitted to molesting a boy multiple times
in a Gilroy cabinet shop and murdering the boy’s relative will
spend 26 years to life in prison.
A 21-year-old man who admitted to molesting a boy multiple times in a Gilroy cabinet shop and murdering the boy’s relative will spend 26 years to life in prison.
Oscar Daniel Campos Pimentel pleaded guilty to the January 2008 murder of his housemate, Juan Garcia, 47, and molestation charges stemming from several encounters Pimentel had with Garcia’s 13-year-old relative.
Pimentel, whose father owned a custom cabinet shop in Gilroy, molested the young victim, an employee at the shop, four to twelve times during the summer of 2007, said Monterey County Deputy District Attorney Todd Hornik. Molestation also occurred at Pimentel’s home in Las Lomas, where Pimentel lived with his father and Juan Garcia, who was a friend of Pimentel’s father. The boy occasionally visited his relative at the house.
Several months after the molestation ended, Pimentel’s father and Garcia asked Pimentel to leave the Pimentel’s Las Lomas home for an unknown reason, Hornik said. Less than 36 hours later, Garcia was dead, his body found buried off the side of San Andreas Road in Santa Cruz County, and Pimentel was in police custody, booked for murder.
After he was kicked out, Pimentel returned to the house when no one was home except for Garcia, though authorities had “unresolved issues” about whether Pimentel returned alone or accompanied by others, Hornik said. Soon after, someone shot Garcia at least four times with a high-powered rifle, then bundled him into Pimentel’s car and dumped in Santa Cruz County. However, the district attorney doesn’t “know who pulled the trigger,” and police never recovered the murder weapon, Hornik said.
Although two more casings were found near where police dug up Garcia’s body, the coroner’s report revealed that Garcia died at the Pimentel residence, Hornik said.
When Pimentel’s father arrived home, he noticed drops of blood spattered on the house’s entryway and could not find Garcia. After questioning his younger children, he called 911. Exchanging text messages with his younger sister, Pimentel learned he was wanted by police and turned himself in to Monterey County sheriff’s deputies. Within a couple hours, police located Garcia’s body, Hornik said.
Pimentel later confessed to the molestation of Garcia’s relative, and pleaded guilty to second degree homicide and two counts of child molestation. A Monterey County judge sentenced him to 26 years to life in prison.
