MILLIKAN HIGH SENIOR KILLED IN ACCIDENT A 17-year-old Millikan High student was accidentally shot and killed Thursday at a gas station where he was employed. Dead-on-arrival at Los Altos Hospital around 7 p.m. was Richard Van Diepen, of 3608 Nipomo Ave. He had been shot in the chest with a .38-caliber revolver. Officers booked Emil Perez Ventura, 25, for investigation of manslaughter and an alien in possession of a firearm. Det. Sgt. Frank Welch of the homicide bureau said Ventura told him that he was showing the gun to Van Diepen and three other persons at the station. The gun, which Ventura had previously loaded, suddenly discharged and struck Van Diepen in the chest. Ventura, a native of Spain, is assistant manager of the station located at 3565 Los Coyotes Diagonal. He lives at 3759 Marwick Ave., with his wife and three young children.
Rich was a really nice guy and a good friend of mine. The day he died he said he was going to work that night and I said OK see you tomorrow. His death was a shock and a real awakening, bad things do happen to good people.
I did not know Rich nor did I have any classes with him at Millikan but I vividly remember this tragedy and how the shock and loss among his many friends spread through the campus that March. The grief among these young people was so deep. Somehow, happening as it did just weeks before we enter the real world, I've always remembered Rich's loss as something of a harbinger for the rest of us. Rich VanDiepen was the first of the Class of '68 to leave too soon. RIP.
Tad Reynales
Independent Press-Telegram - 3/8/68
MILLIKAN HIGH SENIOR KILLED IN ACCIDENT A 17-year-old Millikan High student was accidentally shot and killed Thursday at a gas station where he was employed. Dead-on-arrival at Los Altos Hospital around 7 p.m. was Richard Van Diepen, of 3608 Nipomo Ave. He had been shot in the chest with a .38-caliber revolver. Officers booked Emil Perez Ventura, 25, for investigation of manslaughter and an alien in possession of a firearm. Det. Sgt. Frank Welch of the homicide bureau said Ventura told him that he was showing the gun to Van Diepen and three other persons at the station. The gun, which Ventura had previously loaded, suddenly discharged and struck Van Diepen in the chest. Ventura, a native of Spain, is assistant manager of the station located at 3565 Los Coyotes Diagonal. He lives at 3759 Marwick Ave., with his wife and three young children.
Bob Snell
Rich was a really nice guy and a good friend of mine. The day he died he said he was going to work that night and I said OK see you tomorrow. His death was a shock and a real awakening, bad things do happen to good people.
Bruce Colby Hendrick
I did not know Rich nor did I have any classes with him at Millikan but I vividly remember this tragedy and how the shock and loss among his many friends spread through the campus that March. The grief among these young people was so deep. Somehow, happening as it did just weeks before we enter the real world, I've always remembered Rich's loss as something of a harbinger for the rest of us. Rich VanDiepen was the first of the Class of '68 to leave too soon. RIP.