Local News in Brief : Youth Held in First Murder in Thousand Oaks in 7 Years

A14-year-old boy was in custody in Ventura County Jail on Tuesday, suspected of committing the first reported murder in Thousand Oaks in nearly seven years, a county sheriff’s deputy said.

The teen-ager, whose name was withheld because of his age, was arrested Monday on suspicion of murdering Jeffery Anderson, 21, of Newbury Park, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Tom Odle. The minor will face a probation hearing today to determine if he will stand trial.

Odle said the suspect, who attends a public continuation school in Thousand Oaks, had an argument Monday morning with Anderson over a marijuana transaction in a room of a house owned by Anderson’s parents. Witnesses said they saw the suspect leave the room where Anderson was found with a knife wound in the back, Odle said.

Anderson died about an hour later at Los Robles Regional Medical Center. The suspect was arrested later at the school.

Odle said it had not been determined whether the suspect could be tried for murder as an adult. He said the county district attorney’s office would make that decision.

Anderson’s homicide is the first to take place in Thousand Oaks since a man was found bludgeoned to death in another Newbury Park home in March, 1978, said Oscar L. Fuller, commander of the Sheriff’s East Valley Station. That case is still unsolved.

Fuller added that the body of an unidentified woman was found at Westlake High School in 1980, but detectives determined that the woman had been killed elsewhere. For that reason, Fuller said, the still unsolved murder is not counted in the homicide statistics for Thousand Oaks.