TULARE, Calif. (KMJ) Douglas Paul has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murder.
On the night of March 16, 2022, Porterville Police Department officers were dispatched to a call of shots fired. When officers arrived at the location, they found an adult female victim shot in her vehicle, which had rolled backward into a fence. The victim was pronounced deceased at a local hospital shortly after.
Witnesses stated that they heard 4 to 6 shots and saw a white SUV depart from the scene. During interviews and subsequent investigation, detectives learned that the victim had recent conflicts with Paul. Police obtained a search warrant for the OnStar GPS system in Paul’s white Chevy Equinox SUV, driven that night by Yvette Carillo, age 36, which placed the vehicle at the murder location. Cell phone pings to both Paul and Carrillo’s devices also placed them in the area.
On March 31, 2022, using cell phone data, police tracked Paul and Carrillo to a residence. After setting up a SWAT perimeter, law enforcement saw Paul attempt to dump firearms into a neighbor’s yard. Paul, Carrillo, and two others were detained and a search located multiple firearms, ammunition, and drugs including a stolen 9mm firearm in a vehicle Paul had been seen driving. Ballistic analysis later confirmed the handgun was the murder weapon.
At trial on December 2, 2025, a Tulare County jury convicted Paul of premeditated first-degree murder with special allegations that he used a firearm and was lying in wait. He was also convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. Paul possesses two prior strikes under California’s Three Strikes law: 2014 felony convictions for assault with a semi-auto firearm and assault with a deadly weapon with the special allegation that the crimes were committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang.
On October 22, 2025, the court sentenced Carrillo to 17 years-to-life in prison after she pleaded to second-degree murder and possession of a firearm.
