Kevin Ray James, the man convicted in the infamous slaying of bank teller Monica Leech during a 1997 bank robbery in Thousand Oaks, has been sentenced to at least 19 years in prison.
James learned of his fate last Friday, with a Ventura County judge sentencing him to 19 years to life in state prison for his role in one of the most notorious crimes in the county’s history.
James pleaded guilty to the crime on May 16, admitting that he shot Leech in the back of the head while she and other hostages at the bank were handcuffed.
He was one of two men who entered the Western Financial Bank in Thousand Oaks on April 28, 1997, posing as construction workers and demanding cash from the vault.
Several of the employees were handcuffed and forced to the ground as James looked over them, while the other suspect, who has never been identified, led three employees to the vault.
For reasons that were never made clear, James shot 39-year-old Monica Leech, a mother of four, in the back of the head while she was handcuffed alongside her colleagues. Leech, a Camarillo resident, had only been working on the bank for a few months before her death, and witnesses said she was cooperating throughout the ordeal.
After killing Leech and robbing the vault, James and his accomplice fled with approximately $11,000. They crashed their Ford Explorer during the escape, but were able to get away on foot.
For nearly three decades, the crime went unsolved and became one of the most notorious cold cases in Ventura County.
But in March 2021, the case was reopened and advancements in DNA testing technology allowed investigators to retest crucial piece of evidence.
James, who was living in San Bernardino County at the time, was eventually identified as the suspected triggerman, and was taken into custody and charged with Leech’s murder in March 2023.
Authorities said James was a Los Angeles gang member at the time of the deadly robbery.
Friends and family members of Leech were present at James’ sentencing hearing last week, and provided statements about the impact her killing has has on them.
In a news release issued Monday morning, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office released transcripts of some of those statements, including from her husband Floyd.
“The hurts, nightmares, and heartaches we all have will never go away, for one senseless act. You already had what you came for, the money, all you had to do was leave,” Floyd Leech said. “There is no such thing as closure for what was done that day and the loss and hurt will never go away. We will all live with this for the rest of our lives because of your actions.”
Her sister said the entire family had been irrevocably changed by the senseless murder, but vowed to ensure the memory of Monica Leech lives on now that justice had been served.
A fellow bank teller that day described the “mental anguish” suffered from being robbed at gunpoint and then watching a colleague be executed in from of him. “The crime was violent, but the murder of Monica Leech was pure, unprovoked evil,” he said.
Last week’s sentencing was described by members of the D.A.’s Office as the culmination years of hard work by local authorities to “finally bring justice to the family, friends, co-workers and loved ones of Monica Leech.”