Shooter Sebron Flenaugh
Victims Jennifer Hollis (17) and Jim Disney (19)
A black security guard who murdered two white teens in a racist shooting rampage at the workplace he was hired to protect has won parole – despite an assurance given by the sentencing judge that he would spend the rest of his life in prison.
Sebron Flenaugh opened fire on staff at the MicroPure office in Concord, CA in June 1988. He gunned down 17-year-old Jennifer Hollis and 19-year-old Jim Disney, and grievously wounded four others, stopping only because he ran out of bullets.
The Oaklander claimed he felt “disrespected” at work.
After a bench trial Flenaugh was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for two counts of second degree murder plus 23 years for four counts of attempted murder, to run consecutively.
A newly-released transcript of Flenaugh’s August 21 parole hearing reveals commissioners were persuaded to spring him over the objections of a prosecutor and bereaved family members.
“One chilling aspect of the commitment offense,” said Contra Costa deputy district attorney Michael Gressett, “is the survivors talking about how Mr Flenaugh is literally smiling as he’s doing the shooting.”
Gressett told commissioners that Flenaugh used a .357 magnum to methodically shoot each victim before fleeing the scene in his Cadillac.
“At the end of today’s hearing we get ‘well, okay, I did shoot them ‘cause they were white’. Well, okay, but none of those people did anything to you,” Gressett said.
He noted in his closing remarks that the 36 years Flenaugh had served so far was “way shy” of the imposed sentence.
The hearing was told that, to avoid inflaming racial tensions present in late 80s Concord, authorities had been desperate to avoid making race a feature of their case. Prosecutors took the death penalty off the table in order, they told victim families, to more effectively and certainly secure a conviction.
But Jennifer’s father, Ronald Hill, took heart, he said, from Judge Michael Phelan’s assurance that Flenaugh’s sentence would see him imprisoned for the rest of his natural life.
During the hearing Hill held up a group photograph of his daughter and her MicroPure colleagues.
“I don’t think physical or age-related issues are a reason to release this man – his crimes are heinous,” he said. “I can tell you that before my wife passed in December, I told her I’d do everything I could to keep this man jail for the rest of my life and that’s why I’m here today.”
Hill also remembered Jim Disney to commissioners and highlighted the life-changing injuries sustained by other survivors.
“Our entire family has been given a life sentence of heartache and grief,” Jennifer’s aunt, Nancy Gaines, told the hearing.
Flenaugh’s attorney, Josiah Hartman, rested much of his case for his 82-year-old client’s release on what he said was his cognitive decline and age-related infirmity.
“We’re certainly not proposing that his physical issues prevent him from pulling a trigger again. But we do think they should be taken into consideration when you consider the path and road that led Mr Flenaugh to the point of pulling a trigger and how his physical issues may prevent that road again.”
After deliberating for 48 minutes presiding commissioner Lawrence Nwajei announced that he and deputy commissioner Cristina Guerrero had decided to grant parole.
“There was a time when people like you would never dream of being paroled, the politics of the time,” Nwajei told Flenaugh. “But those times were different and the law has been evolving because people now know there is mental illness out there, we talk about it now in society. Back then it was a shameful thing to say ‘hey, I’m not okay.’”
“While today, we are considering giving you a second chance, you didn’t give the victims a second chance and that’s what makes these decisions as heart-wrenching for us who have to make these decisions – and for anyone who’s listening or who will review it, it gives us no delight whatsoever.”
Flenaugh remains in Corcoran State Prison awaiting a mandatory review of the parole decision by the Board of Parole Hearings’ decision review unit – which checks all grants of parole for legal and factual accuracy – that must be completed by December 19 2025.
After that check, unless Governor Gavin Newsom exercises the authority he enjoys in murder cases to modify or reverse parole decisions, he will be released.
Newsom reversed grants of parole on 11 occasions in 2024 – a year in which there were 3,768 parole hearings and 1,154 grants of parole.
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Newsom pauses, but does not halt, parole for man who killed two white teens in racist rampage
A black security guard who murdered two white teens in a racist shooting rampage at the Bay Area workplace he was hired to protect has had his parole temporarily blocked by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who told officials to look again at his parole plans.Sebron Flenaugh opened fire on staff at the MicroPure office in Concord, CA in June 1988. He gunned down 17-year-old Jennifer Hollis and 19-year-old Jim Disney, and grievously wounded four others, only stopping because he ran out of bullets.
The Oaklander claimed he felt “disrespected” at work.
“I ask the board to evaluate Mr Flenaugh’s proposed parole plans, including his relapse prevention plans and his proposed strategies for maintaining mental health stability, and determine if they are sufficient to support his success on parole,” wrote Newsom in a December 2 2025 letter.
Newsom declined to reverse the board of parole hearings’ determination outright. Flenaugh’s grant of parole will now be dealt with at an ‘en banc’ hearing of parole commissioners likely in the next month or two.
While reversals ensure an inmate stays in prison, mere requests for reconsideration usually result in them still being released.
After a bench trial Flenaugh was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for two counts of second-degree murder plus 23 years to life for four counts of attempted murder, to run consecutively. The sentencing judge said that he would spend the rest of his life in prison.
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