On a trip from California to Georgia in 2024, Julia Tatarian brought a photo of a woman she knew a lot about but had never met.
It was a portrait of Ofelia Sandoval, who was found dead at age 30 in her Santa Maria residence on Sept. 18, 1988. Authorities ruled her death a homicide by strangulation.
When Tatarian—a former investigator with the Santa Maria Police Department—arrived in Hall County, Georgia, and showed the photo to the man who would later be tried and found guilty for Sandoval’s murder, he denied knowing her.
“Do you remember talking to detectives back in ’88?” Tatarian asked Aloysius James shortly after his arrest, according to court documents.
“Vaguely,” said James, formerly a Santa Maria resident. “I think they asked me if I know her. … I didn’t know her.”
“But, … your DNA [was] inside of her body,” Tatarian told James. “Your DNA matched to the DNA [at] the scene of the crime.”
Tatarian was among several investigators from various regional and federal law enforcement agencies who were assigned to examine Sandoval’s case at different points between 1988 and 2024.
The Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office prosecuted James for first degree murder and rape in early 2026. In late February, the jury delivered a guilty verdict. Sentencing is scheduled for April 14.
“You can’t undo what happened, but you can provide some sense of justice,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Ann Bramsen told the Sun. “As technology advances, we’re seeing more success in obtaining DNA from old samples.”
Starting in the early 2000s, the Department of Justice (DOJ) used items collected during Sandoval’s autopsy in 1988, including some of her clothes, to develop a DNA profile of an unknown male.
According to court documents, criminalists from the DOJ compared the unknown profile to DNA reference profiles from individuals with ties to Sandoval’s case, including James.
‘There were a lot of moving parts in this case, and I’m thankful that we were able to bring justice for Ofelia Sandoval and her family.’
—Santa Maria Police Department
Chief Christopher Williams
Santa Maria detectives first questioned James about Sandoval on Oct. 31, 1988, about a month after her death. Court documents identified him as a friend of one of Sandoval’s neighbors.
“In 2018, the FBI assisted us in obtaining a surreptitious sample from Mr. James,” prosecutor Bramsen told the Sun. “It’s a fairly common practice for the FBI to assist in obtaining covert DNA samples.”
Court documents state that at one point during the FBI’s stakeout operation in Georgia, Special Agent Thomas Smith watched James “take off a pair of blue nitrile gloves and throw them in the trash” on Feb. 23, 2018. Smith immediately collected the gloves, which the FBI sent to the Santa Maria Police Department.
In 2019, the DOJ assigned Lauren Guerrero—senior criminalist for the federal agency’s DNA analysis unit—to develop a DNA profile from James’ nitrile gloves. She then compared it to previously developed DNA profiles from samples collected at Sandoval’s residence the night she was found dead.
“The profiles were a sperm fraction profile from a T-shirt and a sperm fraction profile from a white towel,” court documents stated. Guerrero concluded that both profiles were consistent with the one she developed from the gloves.
With access to Sandoval’s sexual assault response team kit, Guerrero performed an additional DNA analysis in 2023. She took a vaginal swab from the kit, sampled it, made a slide, and “concluded there were possible sperm present.”
The criminalist then developed a sperm fraction profile, which revealed a DNA mixture of two people other than Sandoval.
“There is a very strong support that the person who left their DNA on the nitrile gloves is a contributor to the mixture,” reported Guerrero, who described the probability that James was a contributor as 78 sextillion times more likely than not.
Guerrero’s analysis also showed “moderate support” that Jose Alberto Ceballos—one of Sandoval’s housemates at the time—was a contributor. Ceballos was the person who called 911 after discovering Sandoval’s body, according to court documents.
That night, Santa Maria Police Department officials questioned Ceballos about his relationship with Sandoval. He told them that he and Sandoval occasionally had sex, including in the early morning of Sept. 18, 1988, around 3 a.m.
When Ceballos got out of bed around 6:30 a.m. to leave for work, he said that Sandoval rolled over and pulled the blanket over her head, according to court documents. He told authorities that when he returned home that evening around 7 p.m., he could see Sandoval on the floor, who he thought was asleep, lying under the same blanket.
He sat down near her and watched TV for about 15 minutes. After extending his hand to tickle Sandoval’s leg, Ceballos knew something was wrong. He pulled back the blanket and realized she was dead. Ceballos then called 911.
According to court documents filed during James’ trial in early 2026, authorities in the U.S. and Mexico were not able to locate Ceballos to testify.
Court documents also state that in January 2024, defendant James voluntarily gave law enforcement a direct sample of his DNA, which the DOJ analyzed and matched with their original reference sample from the covertly retrieved nitrile gloves.
During James’ trial, prosecution cited past indications of alleged violent behavior by summarizing police reports and child welfare reports related to an ex-girlfriend of his, Antoinette Johnson. They lived together between 1991 and 1997 in Chino.
According to Johnson and her daughter, Lakeisha Smith, James physically and sexually abused both individuals on several occasions. On one occasion, Johnson reported to the Chino Police Department that James choked her until she lost consciousness, and that she woke up the following morning with a swollen neck.
Several people from the Santa Maria Police Department were on the trial’s witness list—some active and some retired. Some have since moved on to other roles, like former Santa Maria detective Tatarian, who currently works as an investigator with the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office.
In a statement to the Sun, Santa Maria Police Department Chief Christopher Williams commended the efforts of those “who spent countless hours investigating this horrific crime.”
“There were a lot of moving parts in this case and I’m thankful that we were able to bring justice for Ofelia Sandoval and her family,” Williams said over email.
Sandoval’s daughter was among her family members who were “intricately involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case for years,” prosecutor Bramsen told the Sun.
“Her family has been amazingly resilient throughout the process,” Bramsen said, “and they will be speaking at his sentencing.”
Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in March 12, 2026 – March 19, 2026.