KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Johnson County District Court Judge sentenced a man Tuesday to life in prison without the chance of parole for a 2021 capital murder case in Olathe, according to a news release from the Johnson County District Attorney's Office.
A jury found Axel Arellanes Vara guilty last month of capital murder.
Olathe police were sent about 1:25 a.m. on Nov. 20, 2021, to the 1000 block of East Fredrickson Drive to check on a sound of gunshots call.
They found 45-year-old Angela Santiago and 42-year-old Jose Arellano-Rascon, shot to death in a pickup truck. Both victims were from Tonganoxie, Kansas.
Two other men were charged in the killings, Salvador Garcia-Zarate, 39 and Enrique Cereceda-Soto, 40.
Garcia-Zarate was sentenced in 2025 after a plea deal to 165 months consecutively on two counts of second-degree murder
Cereceda-Soto’s charge was amended to premeditated first-degree murder, according to an earlier KSHB 41 News report.
He was sentenced in 2024 to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 25 years.
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Annual homicide details and data for the Kansas City area are available through the KSHB 41 News Homicide Tracker, which was launched in 2015. Read the KSHB 41 News Mug Shot Policy.
