Suspected Valley criminals often slip below the radar by fleeing to Mexico.
By Tim Eberly / The Fresno Bee12/10/06 05:58:29
Two brothers were gunned down in a summertime brawl outside a central Fresno nightclub.
Within five hours, police identified the shooter: 23-year-old Hector Hernandez.
Undercover officers set up surveillance near Hernandez's home in east-central Fresno. When he didn't show, police turned to relatives to help find him.
Then they got the bad news: The suspected killer had fled to Mexico.
For authorities in Fresno County, the fugitive pipeline to Mexico is a well-worn path. Someone commits a crime — from murder to drug-peddling to rape — and high-tails it for the border.
This year, suspects in six Fresno homicides are believed to have fled to Mexico, and two others were caught before they made their push for the border.
"It's a great source of frustration, and there's no immediate end in sight," Fresno police Lt. Randy Dobbins said. "It's extremely frustrating to get that close and find out he's in Mexico."
Border-jumping is more pronounced in the San Joaquin Valley because of the region's strong ties to Mexico, police say. Very few local fugitives have been captured south of the border in recent years, but detectives say they eventually get caught: Criminals return like boomerangs to their loved ones.
Hernandez, wanted on charges of killing two brothers and wounding a third man in the June 18 shooting dubbed by police the "Father's Day Massacre," has a $3 million warrant waiting for him in Fresno.
Homicide detective Richard Byrd said he doesn't know where Hernandez is, but the suspect's father lives somewhere in Mexico.
Several other Fresno murder suspects, police say, followed the same route:
Alejandro Sardenetas-Duarte, 31, wanted on charges that he shot and killed a man in a midday fight that spilled from a Chinatown restaurant in October.
Martin Villalobos Hernandez, 37, wanted on charges that he killed two and paralyzed another in a May shooting at an apartment across from the Fink-White playground in southwest Fresno.
Jose Angel Perez Jr., 21, the 10th and only outstanding suspect in the Feb. 1 shooting death of a pregnant woman, Nath Ouch, in southeast Fresno.
Most fugitives in Mexico, however, are federal drug suspects, said David Hiebert, a deputy U.S. marshal who runs the Central Valley Joint Fugitive Task Force. And nearly all are Mexican nationals, he said: "If you're blond-haired and blue-eyed or Asian, you're going to stick out like a sore thumb. You want to be invisible."
While most suspects leave family and friends behind, they often have connections in Mexico.
It's no surprise how they get there: cars, mostly, but sometimes buses, authorities say. Tijuana is only a six-hour drive away. Fugitives tend to avoid plane flights because travelers' identities are closely scrutinized.
Those bound for Mexico know to be careful: The U.S. Border Patrol snaps photos of every license plate that crosses the border.
"They'll sell the car, ditch it, steal another one," said Dave Madrigal, one of two Fresno police sergeants in charge of the homicide unit.
Detectives occasionally stop or catch people before they slip across the border.
Hermilo Mojica, 32, was one of the suspected accomplices in the high-profile case of Joaquin Figueroa, who was shot to death by police in early August, three days after he allegedly shot a Fresno police officer.
Police were concerned that Mojica, who had fled Fresno, was making a run for Mexico, Madrigal said.
He reached Los Angeles before a gang detective spoke to him by phone and persuaded Mojica to come back by building a rapport with him, Sgt. Bob Lightfoot said.
Still, there are plenty who make it across.
A police detective spoke to Chinatown murder suspect Sardenetas-Duarte by phone, too, but only after he crossed into Mexico.
"His position is, 'OK, I can be here in Mexico or I can be in prison in the United States,'" Dobbins said. "You do the math."
Retrieving fugitives from Mexico doesn't happen often for law enforcement in the Central Valley. Neither Fresno police, Fresno County sheriff's officials nor the U.S. Marshals Service's local office could recall such a case in recent history.
"It's a very rare thing to catch suspects in Mexico," Hiebert said.
Occasionally, it does happen.
Tulare County authorities got one in March 2004.
Angel Medrano, then 28, was arrested by Mexican officials in the seaside town of Ensenada and turned over to American authorities on the same day at the U.S.-Mexico border.
He was wanted on charges of killing a 16-year-old boy and shooting another man in a 2002 robbery attempt at the teen's home in Earlimart. After the shooting, Medrano drove to Bakersfield and then forced someone at gunpoint to drive him to Tijuana, police suspected.
It's more often that fugitives get arrested after they return to old stomping grounds.
"As time passes, a sense of confidence returns," Dobbins said. "And they eventually come back."
In May 2005, Fresno police arrested Fernando Santa Rosa Jr., then 23, at the work site in west-central Fresno where he had been roofing. Wanted in a 2002 homicide, he had fled to Mexico and may have spent up to a year there.
It's hard to stay away, detectives say: There are more jobs — and better wages — in America.
"You can't come to the United States and live this lifestyle and go back and live as a peasant," Hiebert said.
But it's not just the lifestyle that attracts fugitives to return; family and friends play a role, too.
"Those are the three issues that will get you caught every time," Hiebert said.
Hiebert arrested one man a decade after he had fled Fresno to avoid a 15-year prison sentence for cooking methamphetamine. Working off an informant's tip, Hiebert caught the man in Chowchilla. The man had come back to be with his family and return to the drug trade, Hiebert said.
The reason for fleeing to Mexico is obvious — it's easy to go unnoticed.
Hiebert says there are far fewer law enforcement officers and resources in Mexico, compared to police agencies in the United States.
"It's simply an economic issue. You can't hire police officers if you don't have the money."
Hiebert said Mexican authorities have a harder time tracking people. Most police agencies there don't have organized databases that compile criminal histories or a suspect's previous addresses.
American law enforcement also must play by Mexican rules. They can't conduct any investigations or search-and-arrest operations in the country.
"We won't go into Mexico like Dog the Bounty Hunter," Dobbins said, referring to the reality television star recently arrested on charges he made an illegal arrest in Mexico. "We'd end up in a Mexican prison."
Catching people in Mexico has to be done by Mexican authorities, at the request of their neighbors to the north.
"I have to play by their rules," Hiebert said. "It's their country."
Before Mexican police get involved, U.S. officials must get a bead on where the suspect is hiding. To do that, Hiebert said he finds someone willing to inform on the fugitive, such as scorned lovers or former "business" partners.
"That's the best way to find them," he said. "Who has an ax to grind with the person you're looking for?"
He gets information — a previous address, a bar the suspect was known to frequent — that could lead to the fugitive and passes it along to fellow deputy U.S. Marshals stationed in Mexico. They feed that information to Mexican federal agents, who get to the case when they can.
That can take a while. Local law enforcement officials, including Fresno County Assistant Sheriff Tom Gattie, said Mexican investigations are done at a much slower pace.
"You can't make other societies work on your schedule," Hiebert said. "You have to work on their schedule."
Still, Hiebert said the working relationship between American and Mexican federal agents has improved dramatically over the past two decades — and it goes both ways. He estimates he has arrested 10 to 12 people in the San Joaquin Valley who were wanted for murders in Mexico.
When Mexican authorities arrest someone wanted in America, U.S. officials have three options:
If the suspect is American, he or she can usually be deported with relative ease.
The suspect can be extradited, and U.S. officials must promise not to pursue the death penalty if it's a capital murder case.
If the suspect is a Mexican national, he or she can be tried in the Mexican criminal justice system for crimes committed in America or other countries (the Mexican government usually won't hand over its own citizens).
In such a case, U.S. officials must translate all documents related to the case, such as police reports, into Spanish and hand them over to Mexican authorities.
The California Attorney General's Office has a foreign prosecution program that helps law enforcement agencies prepare the cases. The unit dates back to the 1950s and is comprised of four special agents — three of whom have ties to the Valley, including former Fresno County sheriff's deputy Enrique Mercado and former Fresno-based state narcotics agent Val Jimenez.
Between 1981 and 2006, the prosecution unit filed 277 cases in Mexico. In those, 123 arrests have been made, 92 resulting in convictions. Nine fugitives were found to be dead.
Over the past two decades, authorities in Fresno County have sought prosecution in Mexico at least four times.
In Mexico, trials are almost always based solely on the documented evidence. There is usually no live witness testimony, no jury, no defendant — only a judge who reviews the case before making a ruling.
Foreign cases, therefore, fit well in the country's system. Witnesses don't need to be flown there.
"It's all done on paper," said Alberto Gonzalez, the legal adviser for the foreign prosecution program. "It dovetails perfectly into the Mexican system."
For fugitives still on the lam, detectives say it's just a matter of time before they get snagged.
In November 2004, 78-year-old Jesus Alvarez was crossing into the United States through an Arizona border town to run errands. Border agents discovered he had a 27-year-old warrant out of Fresno County.
Now, Alvarez is 80 years old and serving a six-year sentence in a Corcoran prison for the 1977 killing of his estranged wife while she worked at an Orange Cove bar.
"We chase them until we find them or a death certificate," Hiebert said. "The more times you come back to the United States, the more brazen you become. ... I only have to be lucky once."
The reporter can be reached at
teberly@fresnobee.comor (559) 441-6465.
