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 News from Around the Americas | March 2007 
Man Sought in Pasco Killing Last Summer Arrested in Mexico
 Associated Press
Pasco, Wash. - A man charged last summer with killing a woman at her home in this Eastern Washington town has been arrested in Mexico City and may wind up going on trial there, authorities say.
Martin Vaal Lopez, 30, was arrested Friday but it would take a year or more to determine whether he will be returned to stand trial for the shooting of Beatris Pulido-Padilla, 39, a mother of three, Franklin County Prosecutor Steve M. Lowe said Tuesday.
Lowe would not give details on the arrest, saying he didn't want to aid others who might go south of the border to avoid prosecution.
In documents filed in Superior Court, prosecutors wrote that a man knocked on Pulido-Padilla's door on June 27, asked for "the lady of the house," entered and fired several shots before fleeing. Lopez, identified by a witness from a photographic lineup, was charged three days later with first-degree murder. No motive has been given.
If Lopez is returned to Pasco, he would be the third murder defendant to be arrested in Mexico and returned to Franklin County in the past two years. If Mexican courts bar extradition, Mexican law allows a trial in Mexico and Lowe said his office would likely present the case there.
Lowe said investigators believe 13 other people facing charges in the county also have fled to Mexico.
"I've got my list, a list I've been working on for 12 years, and we've added a few over the years -- and as they get picked up, they get crossed off," Lowe said.
"As the publicity and the word (of growing Mexican government cooperation) gets around, they're going to be harder to find in Mexico," he said. "We want to move as quickly as we can with information we have now to get these folks arrested in Mexico." |
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