A 58-year-old man has been sentenced to 19 years to life in state prison for the murder of bank teller Monica Leech during a 1997 armed bank robbery in Thousand Oaks.

Kevin Ray James pled guilty to the murder on May 16, 2025, after the case had remained cold for more than two decades until investigators were able to gather enough evidence, using new DNA technology to link him to the murder.

On April 28, 1997, two armed men disguised as construction workers with raincoats, hardhats, and pantyhose as masks entered Western Financial Bank on Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

They forced employees, including 39-year-old Leech, into the vault room and demanded they open the safe. During the robbery, Leech and another bank employee were handcuffed by the suspects, forced to their knees, and Leech was fatally shot.

Leech, a mother of four from Camarillo, died at the scene. The suspects fled with around $11,000 in cash.

District Attorney Erik Nasarenko announced the sentencing of the San Bernardino man on Monday. Leech's family friends and co-workers spoke at the sentencing hearing which took place last week.

"The emotional and mental anguish caused by the act of being robbed at gunpoint is incomparable to the horror of hearing the gun go off and seeing a colleague and friend fall over right beside me. The crime was violent, but the murder of Monica Leech was pure, unprovoked evil," Scott G. said.