Axel Arellanes-Vara was sentenced to life without parole for a 2021 double killing in Olathe.
A Johnson County judge sentenced the 40-year-old to life without the possibility of parole on Tuesday, Nov. 3, according to KCTV5. A jury had found Arellanes-Vara guilty of one count of capital murder on Sept. 9 after a six-day trial, the Johnson County Post reported.
The conviction stems from the shooting deaths of Angela Santiago, 45, and Jose Arellano-Rascon, 42. The couple was from Tonganoxie, Kansas.
On Nov. 20, 2021, around 1:25 a.m., Olathe police responded to reports of gunfire in the 1000 block of East Fredrickson Drive. Officers found Santiago and Arellano-Rascon shot to death inside a vehicle that was still running and in drive, according to the Johnson County Post.
Witnesses initially described the suspects as four to five men in a dark-colored pickup truck according to the Olathe Reporter.
The investigation stretched nearly a year. In September 2022, Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe announced the arrests of three men: Arellanes-Vara, Salvador Garcia-Zarate and Jesus Enrique Cereceda-Soto, according to the Olathe Reporter. All three were charged with capital murder.
Arellanes-Vara was the only defendant to go to trial.
Cereceda-Soto pleaded guilty to premeditated first-degree murder in June 2023 and was sentenced to 330 months, or 27.5 years, in prison, according to the Johnson County Post. Garcia-Zarate was also sentenced in 2025 in connection with the killings, KMBC reported.
Arellanes-Vara was the last of the three defendants to be sentenced.
