The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office arrested a fifth suspect last week in connection with the April 30, 2025 fatal stabbing of a 17-year-old in the Goleta Valley.
While officials haven’t publicly named the victim, family members identified him in a GoFundMe as Damien Hernandez.
The fifth suspect in the incident, whose name was not released, is 16 years old, according to Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Raquel Zick.
He was arrested at his Santa Barbara home on the 900 block of San Pascual Street on May 28 on suspicion of murder and conspiracy. When he was arrested last week, he was on juvenile probation and had a GPS monitoring device for charges unrelated to Hernandez’s murder, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
“Juvenile court proceedings are pending for murder with a gang enhancement,” Zick said, noting that the investigation into the murder is active.
“…Due to the involvement of juvenile suspects, additional information regarding their identities will not be released.”
Emergency personnel first responded to San Simeon and Turnpike Road at around 8:48 p.m. for a report of a person down in the roadway, a Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said last year.
The victim was transported to the hospital, where he died from his injuries at around 9:33 p.m.
The four other suspects in the stabbing have been identified as two adults — 24-year-old Antonio Sanabia Garcia and 20-year-old Adelfo Calles — and two 16-year-old juveniles, whose names were not released.
Garcia and Calles were arrested in Santa Barbara in June and July of 2025, respectively.
Garcia was booked on suspicion of murder and conspiracy.
He pleaded guilty to assault with force likely to provide great bodily injury and a gang enhancement in February. He is set to be sentenced in September. He was not in jail custody as of Wednesday.
Calles was released, then rearrested on May 9, 2026.
Court records show he was charged with two felonies, murder and assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury, and two enhancements of violent felony murder/voluntary manslaughter and committing a felony to benefit or in association with a street gang, the Westside Gang.
He pleaded not guilty on May 15. He will be back in court on June 16 for a preliminary hearing setting.
He remained in custody at the Santa Barbara County Main Jail with no bail as of Wednesday morning.
One of the 16-year-old juveniles was in custody at the Santa Maria Juvenile Detention Center on unrelated charges when he was booked for the murder of Hernandez in June 2025.
That case is ongoing, and there is a petition to move the case to adult court, Zick said.
The other 16-year-old juvenile was arrested at his Santa Barbara home on the 500-block of West Canon Perdido Street, also in June 2025.
He was booked on charges of murder and conspiracy in a case that “has been concluded in juvenile court,” per Zick.
Zick said the 16-year-old arrested last week is the “final” suspect in connection with this case.
Additional details about the juveniles and their court cases were not immediately available.
Sheriff Bill Brown said he hopes last week’s arrest “provides some measure of reassurance that this case was not forgotten.”
“Our detectives remained committed to seeking justice from day one and continued that work until every known suspect was identified and arrested,” he said.
