Austin Eis, 25, son of Indivisible Conejo co-founder Jennifer Stokely Eis, a local liberal activist, is scheduled to stand trial starting April 5, nearly a year after his violent, hour-long rampage ended with the death of 15-year-old Wesley Welling in April 2023. A pre-trial conference is scheduled for March 20 at the Ventura County courthouse.
Last July, district attorney Erik Nasarenko announced that an amended complaint had been filed and that Eis was being charged with first-degree murder for the unlawful killing of Welling.
“In light of the ongoing investigation, we have discovered new evidence to support additional charges and defendant’s premeditation,” said senior deputy district attorney Amber Lee, a member of the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office Major Crimes Homicides Unit, in a statement. “The amended complaint reflects that evidence.”
Eis is scheduled to stand trial starting April 5, nearly a year after his violent, hour-long rampage.
The amended complaint charged Eis with 19 counts of attempted murder. An investigation identified six additional students who were in the path of Eis’s vehicle.
According to the statement, on April 18, 2023, Eis is alleged to have entered a Simi Valley Walmart where he used pepper spray and stabbed one employee, physically assaulted and attempted to drag a second employee, and lunged at two additional employees with a knife. After leaving Walmart in a white Toyota Camry, Eis is alleged to have fled to his parents’ residence in Camarillo and forced his way inside the home. Police were called to the house, but Eis had already left in the car again and is accused of driving his vehicle to Thousand Oaks, where he intentionally targeted and struck high school students outside of Westlake High School, his own alma mater. In addition to the injured and killed, several other students were narrowly missed by the car.
Eis is the son of left-wing activist group Indivisible Conejo’s Jennifer Stokely Eis and Mark Eis, a senior IT manager at Amgen, according to LinkedIn profiles. Indivisible’s other co-founder is Jon Cummings, whose wife, Gwen Cummings, also works at Amgen and strongly promotes the normalization of gender dysphoria.
Jennifer Stokely Eis also worked as an out-of-state director for the Northeast Arizona Native Democrats. In 2017, according to school board records, Jennifer was a vocal proponent of keeping literature in Conejo Valley schools that many say is inappropriate for minors. The family still has made no public statements regarding their son’s arrest.
“I said, ‘I’m proud of you. I love you. Have a good day,’ and that was the last thing I said to him.”
Eis graduated from Westlake High School in 2017. Records show he competed in track meet events, including discus and shot put. He graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo last year. Sheriff’s deputies believe Eis was currently homeless and living out of his car.
Victim Wesley Welling was the son of Kelly Welling and sister of Hannah, who, on the day of the crime, called to tell her mother that she and her brother had been in an accident. Hannah and Wesley had been waiting with other students for the bus that would pick them up after school across from Westlake High School on Thousand Oaks Blvd.
Kelly told ABC News, “I get the call from my daughter Hannah. There was an accident, and he was unconscious, and they were doing CPR, and they did CPR the whole way to the hospital. That is where he passed. By some miracle, my daughter wasn’t standing right next to him because it could have been both of them.”
The mother of three recalled her words to her son earlier that morning. “I said, ‘I’m proud of you. I love you. Have a good day,’ and that was the last thing I said to him.”
Suspected murderer Eis remains in custody without bail and is being charged with the following:
- PC 187(a) – First-degree murder
- (19 counts) PC 664/187 – Attempted murder
- PC 245(a)(1) – Assault with a deadly weapon
- PC 22810(g)(1) – Use of tear gas
- PC 459 – First-degree burglary
- PC 459 – Second-degree burglary
- PC 236 – False imprisonment
- (5 counts) PC 417 – Exhibiting a deadly weapon
First, I would like to express my deepest condolences to the Welling family, Kelly Welling and Wesley’s sister, Hannah. This was a horrible and unnecessary murder of a student waiting for the bus to take him home after a day at school. In April this person Austin Eis, walked into Walmart where he used pepper spray and stabbed one employee, physically assaulted and attempted to drag a second employee, and lunged at two additional employees with a knife. Then went home, left in car, and then the unthinkable. Now the question is what drove him to do such an unthinkable thing. Could it be that his overactive action be blamed on the constant exposure to the left’s dangerous doctrine of hate, destruction, lies, and all the evil behind it? Maybe he was drugged? Whatever the reason it should not have happened. I don’t care if you are right or left get over yourself and grow the heck up! You parents are not raising your children the government is. And most and I say most on the one side is so full of hatred for this country and history they are changing it while we all just sit and watch. Do you not care what they are taught, what they hear, all this sick left only agenda sites flooding our internet and social media is dangerously sad. Some of my greatest friends are left and can’t believe what the hell is going on with this administration. So what can we do? VOTE in person and pray for this nation. God bless you all.
Hate never cures hate. Only love can cure hate.
Step 1: Don’t buy the lie of hating anyone.
Step 2: Listen to the truth of God’s love for all people.
Step 3: Love all people. Let your face show it.