A suspect was arrested Thursday in the 1997 killing of a bank teller during a robbery in Thousand Oaks, after advances in DNA science led to new analysis of evidence left at the scene.
Kevin Ray James, 55, of San Bernardino, was arrested on suspicion of murdering Monica Leech, a 39-year-old mother of two from Camarillo, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday. Federal and county investigators believe he was one of two men who robbed the bank and killed Leech. They have not identified or located the second suspect.
Leech was working as a teller at Western Financial Bank on April 28, 1997, when two men dressed as construction workers entered the bank, held the employees at gunpoint and put them in handcuffs. One of the men shot Leech in the back of the head while handcuffing her, for no apparent reason, investigators said in 2021.
Tony Biasotti, Ventura County Star