Background: The Ventura County Government Center Hall of Justice (Google Maps). Inset: Aaron Jabezz Holmes (Ventura County District Attorney's Office).
A California man who took part in a fatal crime spree that took the life of a family man is going to prison.
Aaron Jabezz Holmes, 30, was sentenced to more than five decades behind bars on Monday after pleading no contest to first-degree murder in connection with the 2015 shooting death of 25-year-old Angel Diaz. In a press release, the Ventura County District Attorney's Office said that Holmes acknowledged that he "personally and intentionally discharged a firearm causing death." Prosecutors also outlined the crime spree that Holmes participated in on the night of April 30, 2015, that resulted in Diaz's death.
According to prosecutors, Holmes was 19 years old when he and four others — two adults and two minors — spent an evening that was violent from the start. Before Diaz's murder, Holmes was planning to commit a robbery, but came across Diaz first. On that fateful night, Diaz was sitting in his truck, parked outside of a doughnut shop, eating his dinner. Prosecutors said Diaz ate in his vehicle "to avoid waking his family when he arrived home" after his late shift at work.
Holmes approached Diaz's vehicle with a loaded gun and tapped on the driver's side window. As Diaz tried to escape by shifting gears and driving away, Holmes fired a fatal shot through the window. As he died, Diaz's vehicle careened into the doughnut shop.
Before Holmes got to Diaz, he targeted other random people, including a driver he identified as an "enemy" and shot at, and a group of teenagers practicing a dance routine in a parking lot.
Holmes pleaded no contest to first-degree murder in September 2025. He was sentenced to 54 years to life in prison, with the possibility of parole when he is around 44 years old.
