SoCal restaurant owner was killed in botched kidnapping. Family has justice 28 years later
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On June 13, 1998, two young men broke into a Southern California restaurant owner’s upscale home on the orders of a local poker club owner.
The club owner behind the plan, Jose Alberto Vasquez, had hired them to kidnap Felipe Arambula, the owner of Taqueria Vallarta in downtown Ventura. The plan, according to authorities, was to extort money from Arambula over an alleged unpaid debt.
But Manuel Vasquez, 20, and William David Hampton Jr., 19, botched the kidnapping scheme. When Arambula arrived home to them holding his wife and young children captive, a fight ensued, and Arambula was fatally shot. The pair fled the scene, The Times reported at the time.
Their paths soon diverged. Hampton, who was arrested in Texas, and the club owner were each sentenced in 1999 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But Vasquez managed to flee the country. (The Vasquezes were unrelated.)
Decades later, Manuel Vasquez has been found.
Ventura County Dist. Atty. Erik Nasarenko said Monday that Vasquez, now 48, was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison for the killing of Felipe Arambula. He pleaded guilty on Sept. 30 to first-degree murder.
According to the district attorney’s office, Manuel Vasquez fled to Mexico before charges were filed. He remained a fugitive until he was apprehended in 2023. He was extradited to Ventura County in April 2025.
Vasquez’s attorney, Christopher Chaney, told The Times in a statement that his client “accepted responsibility for his role in Mr. Arambula’s death and has expressed genuine remorse for the pain he caused.”
“Nothing can undo what Mr. Arambula’s family has lost,” Chaney said. “I hope this resolution brings them some measure of peace.”
Court records show that Vasquez was ordered to pay restitution to several of the victim’s family members.
“Despite waiting nearly 30 years for justice, the victim’s family never wavered in their belief that one day all the men responsible for the victim’s murder would be successfully prosecuted,” Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. John Barrick, a member of the Ventura County district attorney’s Major Crimes Homicide Unit, said in a statement.
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