San Francisco and Oakland killers denied parole while Santa Clara three-striker gets out
Newly released transcripts of recent state parole hearings show two San Francisco murderers and one Oakland killer denied parole – while a Santa Clara County three-striker, serving a 163-year sentence, with a “very violent criminal history” was ordered released.
Samuel Landry, sentenced to 25-years-to-life for the 1982 murder of San Francisco resident Matthew Hall, was denied parole for three years at a June 11 hearing.
Landry, 61, tried to rob Hall shortly after he parked his car in the garage of his Fell Street home.
“I grabbed him by his throat and I picked him up and I slammed his head on the concrete, and I kept hitting it on the concrete,” Landry told parole commissioners via videoconference.
He then took a saw to the man’s neck.
After the assault, he stole the car, pausing only to close the garage door so no one would see his victim. Hall, 28, who did not regain consciousness, lingered in a coma for three months with severe craniocerebral trauma before succumbing to his injuries.
Landry wasn’t arrested for the crime for five years. Three months after the murder he was shot by an off-duty cop while fighting him for his gun after he was spotted fleeing another Fell Street robbery.
In 1985, while on bail, the depraved thug was arrested for punching two women to unconsciousness, and assaulting a third, during a robbery spree in the Lower Pacific Heights district. He was arrested for Hall’s murder while in prison for those attacks.
“The life crime was notable for its extreme violence and the extraordinary level of callousness,” San Francisco prosecutor Linda Moore told commissioners.
“There was a witness watching from across the street who said the inmate attacked Mr Hall the second he stepped out of the car. There was a brief struggle. He knocked him to the ground and then repeatedly smashed his head on the concrete.”
“The witness was across Fell Street…an east-west thoroughfare in San Francisco, used all the time. Three lanes of traffic, two parking lanes. And yet across those five lanes and the noise of traffic, the witness could hear the sound of the victim’s head hitting the concrete repeatedly.”
“I acknowledge the changes he has made,” concluded Moore, “but we still find him a current and unreasonable risk of danger in the community.”
Landry admitted that his story that the killing was self-defence was a lie.
The inmate was also convicted in 2015 of assaulting a prisoner.
After 17 minutes’ deliberation presiding commissioner Neil Schneider, commissioner Dianne Dobbs and deputy commissioner Rosalito Castro denied him parole – but he was told that he was on track for release if he maintains good behavior in prison.
“At about 11 to 12 months from now a deputy commissioner will be looking at your case. And if you’ve done what [we] have asked you to do and stay discipline-free, in all likelihood, you’ll be advanced, you’ll have a hearing in 18 months,” said Schneider.
David Chatman, 53, convicted of second degree murder for killing 15-year-old Hagbom Saileele in a 1991 drive-by shooting in San Francisco’s Hunter’s Point, was denied parole on June 10.
Western Addition gang member Chatman and his accomplices were involved in an attempt to get revenge on a rival gang who they believed had stolen a car. He was sentenced to 22-years-to-life.
Chatman’s bid for freedom suffered an early reverse when presiding commissioner Robert Barton noted that the inmate had used fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine in 2023 and marijuana in 2024 and 2026. Chatman’s fentanyl intake was so significant he suffered an overdose in prison.
“To hear that he’s continuing to use drugs and ignoring the need for addressing this issue concerns us,” said assistant district attorney Andrew Clark. “The comprehensive risk assessment concludes on page 14 that they have significant concern about his continued drug use. We do too in the city and county of San Francisco. We believe that his rating as a high-moderate risk of violence clearly demonstrates that he’s not ready for parole.”
After 8 minutes’ deliberation Chatman was denied parole for five years.
“He has to know where to find those drugs,” said Barton, “and that means he’s still involved with the criminal element.”
“[It] shows ongoing criminal thinking, a willingness to do things that are not only against the rules, but against the law.”
In 2024, the last year for which figures are available, 78 California state prisoners died of drug overdoses, the vast majority of which involved fentanyl. Overdose is the most common cause of inmate death – ahead of cancer, heart disease, homicide and other causes.
Jesus Santillano, who shot to death Roman Escobedo in Oakland in October 2001 during a baptism celebration for Escobedo’s 4-month-old son, was denied parole June 10.
The culprit and his victim had grown up together in Mexico.
The hearing was considerably abbreviated owing to the inmate’s decision not to leave the security housing unit, where he had been placed for disciplinary violations, to attend the hearing.
“While at a religious ceremony for an infant, Mr Santillano walked to his car to get a gun and loaded that gun,” Alameda prosecutor April Smith told commissioners.
“One victim tried to stop him by asking him to put the gun away, mentioning children present, and Mr Santillano shot that victim. When the victim’s brother tried to intervene to prevent his family from being killed, Mr Santillano shot him in the chest. The father of the infant was killed.”
“This was an extremely violent, callous and cruel murder.”
Several family members of the murdered man spoke in opposition to his killer’s release.
After 18 minutes’ deliberation, presiding commissioner Michelle Minor announced Santillano would be denied parole for 10 years.
“His institutional behavior is strongly aggravating,” she noted.
“He has approximately 50 rule violations, with the latest rule violation 20 days ago. That incident was a battery on a prisoner and required officers to use a sponge impact round to stop the attack.”
“He’s at nearly 20 rule violations since his previous comprehensive risk assessment. Numerous violent violations: batteries, riots, fighting, possession of deadly weapons, unlawful assemblies, conduct likely to lead to violence and other disciplinary actions. The panel finds this demonstrates ongoing inability to comply with institutional rules and control aggressive behavior.”
Santa Clara County third-striker Arthur Mendez, 71, won parole June 25.
Mendez was sentenced to 163-years-to-life for his 1999 third-strike crimes – six counts of assault with a deadly weapon including a victim who was a six-months-pregnant woman.
Presiding Commissioner Patricia Cassady recited the gang member’s “very violent criminal history” including repeated violence against police and auto theft in the 1970s, assault with intent to murder in 1980, and assault with a deadly weapon while in jail and another assault with a deadly weapon on release. He also separately stabbed a 19-year-old man in a liquor store.
“It’s pretty amazing that you could fit that many crimes into one lifetime, but you seem to be able to find a way to do it,” said Cassady.
“The people’s position today, based on the narrow question of whether he still poses an unreasonable risk of danger, based on the evidence that I’ve heard today and what I’ve reviewed, I do not believe that he is yet ready,” said Santa Clara prosecutor Diem Ly Vo who nevertheless, according to the transcript, did not mount a particularly heroic effort to keep the inmate detained.
After 13 minutes’ deliberation Cassady announced that Mendez would be granted parole.
Mendez won release because of legal chicanery designed to sneak more felons into parole eligibility without setting off public alarm bells. In 2018, a court gave ‘nonviolent’ three-strikers early access to parole hearings – but defined as ‘nonviolent’ many offenses often involving disturbing violence.
Unless the parole board’s ‘decision review unit’ finds a legal error in the decision, or Governor Newsom asks the commissioners to take another look at the case, which is all he can do in non-murder cases, Mendez will be released later this year from state prison in Soledad.
Main picture: Samuel Landry and David Chatman.
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