Man pleads guilty in murder of Westlake High School student
On Feb. 21, 26-year-old Austin Eis pleaded guilty to multiple felonies, including murder, which took place at a bus stop near Westlake High School. Eis also pleaded guilty to six counts of attempted murder, according to the news release from the Ventura County District Attorney, in which he stabbed a person and proceeded to intentionally crash his car into the bus stop, killing 15-year-old Wesley Welling and injuring three other students.
Eis was alleged by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office and district attorney’s office to have begun his crime spree at a Simi Valley Walmart on April 18, 2023. There, he assaulted a greeter by “spitting, pepper spraying, and stabbing him multiple times” and dragging another employee across the store. After this, Eis fled to Camarillo, where he broke into his parents’ home. Eis was armed with a replica firearm and a knife as he demanded access to additional weapons from his parents.
Following this, Eis drove to Thousand Oaks, where he intentionally drove his white Toyota Camry into a group of students at a Thousand Oaks Boulevard bus stop near Westlake High School, where the impact overturned his vehicle. Welling was killed and multiple other students were injured, several of which suffered severe injuries that required surgeries and extensive medical treatment. Witnesses reported that Eis had accelerated toward the students before striking them with his vehicle. During Eis’ preliminary hearing in November of 2023, Deputy District Attorney Amber Lee said that Eis deliberately targeted Westlake High School students, as he graduated from there in 2017, and felt that he had been mistreated at the school while he was a student.
On May 19, 2023, Eis originally pleaded not guilty to 24 counts, including the murder of Welling. As part of a plea deal with the Ventura County District Attorney’s office, Eis admitted his guilt and reversed his not guilty plea to an additional six counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of false imprisonment. The remaining charges that Eis retained his “not guilty” plea for will be dismissed by the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office. Lee said that this plea deal was created to spare the surviving victims from revisiting the trauma of testifying at a jury trial.
Eis’ sentencing is scheduled to take place on April 14, 2025, where he will face 85 years to life in state prison. Because Eis was under the age of 26 at the time he committed the crimes, he will be eligible for parole after 24 years in prison, according to the California youth offender law.
