Eduardo Sandoval

Eduardo Alvarado Sandoval, a 22-year-old Hispanic man from Stockton known to his loved ones as "Lalo," was remembered for being both tough and gentle. A graduate of Sequoia High School in Redwood City, where he played on the football team, his cousin described him as having a menacing build but being "soft for his family and the people he cared about." He was the son of Veronica Sandoval Galvan and Eduardo Alvarado and a brother to two sisters, Idalia and Nancy. His family had moved from East Palo Alto to Stockton to seek a safer environment, but tragedy found him during a visit back to his old neighborhood.

On the night he died, October 14, 2018, his mother had dropped him off at a Halloween-themed 21st birthday party. The party was being held outdoors in the lot of A1 Auto Services & Towing on the 2500 block of Pulgas Avenue in East Palo Alto. In the early morning hours, around 2:45 a.m., several fistfights broke out among the dozens of partygoers. The altercations quickly escalated when one man produced a semiautomatic handgun and fired approximately nine shots into the crowd.

The gunfire struck four people. Police were alerted by the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system and arrived on the scene in under two minutes. They found a chaotic scene and four victims. Eduardo Sandoval and another young man, 23-year-old Mario Andres Vidales Mendez of Redwood City, were pronounced dead at the scene. Two other men were critically wounded; one of them would ultimately require 15 surgeries to recover from his injuries. Investigators from the East Palo Alto Police Department determined the shooting was not gang-related but the result of the disputes at the party.

In the immediate aftermath, the gunman vanished. The investigation identified a suspect, Julian Rico Santana, who was 18 at the time of the shooting. Authorities believed he fled the country, likely to Mexico, shortly after the killings. For years, Eduardo’s family lived with the pain of their loss and the frustration of a case gone cold. His mother, Veronica, said her son's bedroom door remained shut for years. "My son went to a party and never came home," she later said. "For eight years, we have lived with unimaginable pain, waiting and praying for this day."

Years passed with no arrest. In December 2020, the nonprofit organization Mothers Against Murder partnered with police to offer a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Santana. The family continued to advocate for justice, with Eduardo's cousin starting a GoFundMe page to increase the reward money, writing, "This Christmas we only want one thing -- justice."

The family's long wait for a breakthrough finally ended in the spring of 2026. On March 16, after more than seven years as a fugitive, Julian Rico Santana, then 25, was captured in Mexico through a joint effort by Mexican authorities and the U.S. Marshals Service. Prosecutors stated that he had been living a quiet life and teaching English before his arrest. He was extradited back to the United States to face justice.

In April 2026, Santana appeared in a San Mateo County Superior Court for his arraignment. He was charged with two counts of murder for the deaths of Eduardo Sandoval and Mario Mendez, and two counts of attempted murder for the men who were wounded. He was held in custody at the Maguire Correctional Facility and denied bail. Eduardo’s mother and other family members attended the hearing. "I feel happy. It's the beginning," Veronica Sandoval said. "A long way to go." As of the latest reports, the case against Julian Rico Santana is proceeding through the court system.