Jose Lazaro Cruz.Photo:Fairfax County Police Department

Jose Lazaro Cruz, WANTED MURDER SUSPECT ARRESTED 30+ YEARS LATER IN COSTA RICA

Fairfax County Police Department

• Ana Jurado was stabbed to death in April 1991 and her husband, Jose Lazaro Cruz, was named the suspect

• Cruz allegedly fled the country to El Salvador, police say

•After trying to enter Costa Rica, Cruz was apprehended in 2022

A man accused of killing his wife in Virginia in 1991 was arrested in Costa Rica after more than three decades at large, the Fairfax County Police Department says.

Responding to reports of a stabbing in West Falls Church, police found Ana Jurado, 24, suffering from upper body trauma on April 30, 1991, the department says. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Jose Lazaro Cruz.Fairfax County Police Department

Jose Lazaro Cruz, WANTED MURDER SUSPECT ARRESTED 30+ YEARS LATER IN COSTA RICA

Jurado had three young children at the time of her death,CNNreported.

Fairfax County police say they traveled to El Salvador in 1999 in an attempt to locate Cruz and that they gathered information on his whereabouts. He was not apprehended on that trip.

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CNN reported, citing police, that at the time, El Salvador did not have policies in place to extradite Cruz to the United States.

In 2022, the Department of Justice informed Fairfax County detectives that Cruz was apprehended after traveling from Nicaragua to Costa Rica. After a year-and-a-half, he was placed in the custody of the U.S. Marshals and extradited to the U.S.

Police did not say what specific charges Cruz is facing and it is not immediately clear if he has retained an attorney.

source: people.com