Convicted killer mistakenly freed from NC prison charged in recent Wake shooting
Jonathan Santillan was 15 years old when he sprayed bullets into a Garner duplex in 2013, killing an innocent couple amid a gang dispute, prosecutors said.
Santillan, now 31, was supposed to spend at least 35 years in prison, but was mistakenly let out on March 7. Before he was returned to prison on May 7, police said he again opened fire on a home, shooting a woman and attempting to kill a man.
Who is ultimately responsible for the mistake wasn’t clear Thursday. The Department of Adult Correction didn’t receive complete paperwork after Santillan was recently resentenced, a spokesman said. A statement from the Wake Clerk of Superior Court Claudia Croom points to issues with the state department receiving mail.
However, both are now taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again, they said.
“This was an incredibly unfortunate event. We send our sincere apologies to the victim and are relieved that she is expected to make a full recovery,” wrote Department of Adult Correction spokesperson Keith Acree in an email.
The department is working quickly to improve processes and ensure that checks are built into the system in the future, he said.
“This was an error with very serious consequences, and while we cannot discuss specific personnel matters, necessary corrective actions are being taken,” Acree said.
A teen convicted in double murder in 2015
In 2015, a jury convicted Santillan of two counts of first-degree murder in adult court. At trial, the prosecutor said on Jan. 5, 2013, a 15-year-old Santillan had opened fire on the duplex on Colonial Drive, The News & Observer reported.
In the aftermath, police found Jose Samuel Flores Mendoza shot 16 times while watching television, and his wife, Maria Saravia Mendoza, shot seven times while cooking at the stove. The couple had two children.
A previous gang fight had led Santillan to the home, where he thought a gang rival lived, but had moved out the year before, the prosecutor said during the 2015 trial. Witnesses said they found the Mendozas’ 3-year-old son curled up on his father’s body crying.
In addition to the murder charges, Santillan was also convicted of burglary, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to inflict serious injury and conspiracy to commit murder, crimes related to the murders and a gang fight that happened a month before, according to court documents.
Federal courts limit life in prison sentences for youth
A judge sentenced Santillan to life in prison in 2015, but North Carolina appellate judges sent the case back to Wake County court in 2018 after raising questions about how the deputies had interrogated the teen and whether he should spend the rest of his life in prison.
In rulings over the past 20 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the developing brains of children under 18 makes them more vulnerable to recklessness and outside influences than adults. Youth can still be sent to prison for life for murder, but such punishments should be uncommon and judges must consider their age, the Supreme Court has ruled. Activists say sending kids to prison for the rest of their life is always cruel and unusual punishment.
For life in prison sentences to be legal, local judges must find that the youth meets the Supreme Court standard of being “irreparably corrupt” or “permanently incorrigible.”
After Santillan’s case was sent back to Wake court, Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway awaited direction from a separate case before the appellate courts that centered on maximum sentences for youth convicted of crimes they committed before turning 18, said Wake District Attorney Lorrin Freeman.
On Jan. 21, Ridgeway oversaw a hearing and found in Santillan’s case “mitigating factors of immaturity, inability to appreciate the risk and consequences of his conduct” and “the possibility of rehabilitation,” according to court documents.
Ridgeway sentenced Santillan to 10 to 13 years in prison on the burglary, conspiracy to commit murder and assault charges.
Santillan got credit on that time from the nearly 12 years he had already served behind bars.
After Santillan finished that sentence, he would have to serve life in prison with the possibility of parole on the two murder convictions, Ridgeway said. Under state law, Santillan would need to serve at least 25 years before he would become eligible for parole.
Wake court officials “followed its normal process and procedure” as well as those dictated by the Department of Adult Correction, Croom said in a statement.
“In February, my office was informed that the NCDAC was having problems receiving mail from the USPS. In order to confirm receipt of all documents by NCDAC, all commitments will be logged and signed for or will be emailed to Combined Records,” Croom said.
However, the Department of Adult Correction didn’t receive all of the resentencing information, spokesperson Acree said. According to the sentencing information available to correction officials, it appeared that Santillan had served all his time and he was released from prison on March 7, Acree wrote.
The employee responsible for processing the defendant’s resentencing should have searched an internal database to double check whether there were additional judgments, “but they failed to do so,” Acree said.
Five new felonies, two misdemeanors
While Santillan was out, Garner police said he shot a 9 mm handgun into a Garner apartment occupied by a man and a woman on April 21. Initial reports indicated the woman was shot in the shoulder by a man in a blue jacket with a hood who ran from the scene, reported ABC11, The News & Observer’s newsgathering partner.
Santillan now faces five new felony charges, including assault with a gun with intent to kill, and two misdemeanors related to striking and attempting to bite officers.
Freeman said “they have no reason to believe” the recent shooting is connected to the 2013 killings, but declined to provide more information about the shooting or the motive.
Virginia Bridges covers criminal justice in the Triangle and across North Carolina for The News & Observer. Her work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The N&O maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
This story was originally published May 15, 2025 at 6:22 PM.
