Two Women Implicated in Isla Vista Murder

The Santa Barbara Grand Jury has indicted two women as accessories to murder for the parts they played in the May 15 stabbing death of Vincent Velasquez. The 26-year-old victim was killed in Isla Vista during a late-night alcohol-fueled fight on Abrego Road. Police arrested Benjamin Vargas, 20, two days after the incident and charged him with homicide.

After months of additional investigation and prompted by the now-unsealed indictment, police recently arrested 21-year-old Karen Medina (Benjamin Vargas’s girlfriend and the mother of their child) and 29-year-old Maria Vargas (Benjamin Vargas’s sister). Medina is accused of assaulting Velasquez during the deadly scuffle — during which he was stabbed 16 times — and Maria Vargas is charged with driving Benjamin Vargas and Medina away from the scene of the crime. The two women were booked into County Jail on October 21 and released a week later when they each posted $500,000 bail. Benjamin Vargas has pled not guilty and remains behind bars.

Appearing before Judge George Eskin last Friday, Medina, Maria Vargas, and their attorneys — Adam Pearlman and Mark Pachowicz, respectively — hammered out logistical issues before the women’s case could proceed to trial. The attorneys asked Eskin to lift the ban on communication that had been imposed on Medina and Maria Vargas as part of their release from jail.