Officials say children, staff and parkgoers saw Labh Nigah’s fatal stabbing after he dropped off his son in 2014.
OXNARD, Calif. — A murder charge filed more than 11 years after Labh Nigah was stabbed has renewed attention on the children who officials say saw the attack from a schoolyard.
Jose Antonio Jimenez, 32, of Oxnard, is charged with murder in Nigah’s death. Prosecutors said the 2014 killing happened in Sierra Linda Park, next to Sierra Linda Elementary School, after Nigah had walked his son to class. The case now links a public setting, a long cold-case investigation and new DNA work. Officials said the attack was random and that no evidence shows Nigah and Jimenez knew each other. Jimenez remains in custody on $1 million bail while the case moves toward arraignment.
The setting has been central since the first day of the investigation. Sierra Linda Park is not a remote area. It sits by homes and beside an elementary school that was in session when police say Nigah was attacked. At about 8:43 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2014, officers were called to the park for a report of a battery victim. They found Nigah, 55, on a walking path near Indigo Place. He had multiple stab wounds. Police said emergency workers tried to save him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy later ruled the death a homicide.
Oxnard Police Chief Jason Benites described the killing as one that stayed with veteran homicide detectives because of the place, the time and the people who saw it. “This occurred in broad daylight, in a public park, next to an elementary school that was in session,” Benites said. Witnesses included people in the park, teachers, school staff and children in the schoolyard, officials said. The district attorney’s office said Nigah had just walked his son to the nearby school before he was attacked. Authorities believe the attack was random.
For school staff and students, the case was not an abstract crime report. Officials said the violence unfolded close enough for children to witness it during a normal school morning. Early reports said investigators returned to the Sierra Linda area to contact neighbors and parkgoers as they tried to piece together what happened. Police also increased patrols in the area after the killing. At the time, police described the neighborhood as generally safe and said violent crimes of that type were rare there. The public location helped produce witnesses, but it did not quickly produce an arrest.
Investigators collected evidence at the scene, including DNA, and entered it into CODIS. That database did not identify a suspect in 2014. Detectives pursued interviews, public requests for information and composite sketches. The case remained open through the years as the family waited and as the children who saw the aftermath grew older. Officials have not released a full public account of what every witness saw, and they have not announced a motive. They have said Nigah was an unsuspecting victim who appeared to be carrying out his weekday routine.
That routine was simple and familiar. Family members said Nigah was a husband and father of three who worked as a clerk at a local convenience store. He had immigrated from India and put heavy value on his children’s education. Police said he often walked at the park after school drop-off. On the morning he died, he had taken his son to Sierra Linda Elementary and was walking in the park when he was attacked. The ordinary nature of that routine is part of why officials described the killing as an ambush.
The break in the case came after investigators returned to old evidence with newer tools. The Oxnard Police Department, Ventura County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit, Ventura County Crime Lab, FBI and Ventura County District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation took part. Officials said advanced DNA work and genetic genealogy helped develop new leads. District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said investigators were led to a relative of Jimenez in Houston and later to a sibling in Ventura County. Authorities said Jimenez lived blocks from the scene when Nigah was killed.
Detectives served an arrest warrant April 2 at an Oxnard residence and took Jimenez into custody without incident. Prosecutors later charged him with murder and filed special allegations tied to the use of a knife, great violence and a vulnerable victim. Jimenez made a court appearance April 6, but his arraignment was continued. Prosecutors asked the court to raise bail, and the court set it at $1 million. The case is being prosecuted by Senior Deputy District Attorney Amber Lee.
The arrest also gave Nigah’s family a first public name after years of uncertainty. His daughters, Harleen Kaur and Arshneel Kaur, spoke about the shock of learning someone had been arrested. Harleen Kaur said the long absence of a suspect had begun to feel like its own form of closure. Arshneel Kaur said the news caught her off guard, but she was grateful for those who kept working. The sisters described their father as a provider whose lessons stayed with them as they grew up without him.
Nasarenko said the arrest cannot erase what happened to Nigah’s family, but it represents progress toward accountability. He called the killing brutal and said it happened to a completely unsuspecting victim. Benites said the case showed the value of science and persistence in cold-case homicide work. Their comments placed the arrest in a wider frame: a school-adjacent killing seen by children, a family left without answers and a criminal case now moving forward after more than a decade.
Jimenez’s arraignment is scheduled for April 28 at 1:30 p.m. in courtroom 13 of Ventura County Superior Court. Prosecutors have not released a motive, and the murder charge remains an allegation pending court proceedings.
Author note: Last updated 2026-04-28.