E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
U.S. Marshals / AP
This photo provided by the U.S. Marshals Service shows Vincent Legrend Walters. The U.S. Marshals Service says Vincent Legrend Walters, one of its 15 most-wanted fugitives, has been caught in the Mexican resort city of Cancun.
MEXICO CITY -- The U.S. Marshals Service announced the capture of Vincent Legrend Walters, one of the law enforcement agency's 15 most wanted fugitives, in the resort city of Cancun.
Walters, 45, was wanted on kidnapping, murder and drug charges stemming from a 1988 San Diego, Calif., case.
The agency said Walters was apprehended Friday morning, then transported to Mexico City where he will await extradition to the United States.
Walters had been working at the Cancun International Airport under the assumed name Oscar Rivera, according to a statement released by the agency.
Walters is accused in the kidnapping and murder of Christina Reyes in September 1988, U.S. Marshals said in a statement obtained by NBC News. He was also indicted by a federal grand jury in 1989 on conspiracy to manufacture, possess and distribute crystal methamphetamine, carrying firearms during a drug trafficking crime and possession of unregistered firearms and explosives.
Stay informed with the latest headlines; sign up for our newsletter
Walters was snared by an undercover Drug Enforcement Agency operation in 1988 after allegedly purchasing $20,000 worth of chemicals to make methamphetamine and negotiating an additional $200,000 deal with the undercover agents, Marshals said.
They described events this way:
When one of his associates became paranoid holding onto the finished methamphetamine, Walters handed it off to a local drug dealer, who in turn gave it to his friend Jay Bareno. Wanting their drugs back, Walters tracked down the local dealer, who no longer had the drugs, and kidnapped him, along with his friend and his friend's girlfriend to trade them to Bareno for the drugs.
Bareno agreed to exchange the drugs for the hostages. After returning the drugs, two of the hostages were released, but Christina Reyes died when she was gagged with a chemically saturated rag that killed her almost instantaneously.
Martin Walters, Vincent's brother, was caught soon after the crime and has since been convicted of Reyes' kidnapping and murder, they said. He is serving 25 years to life in prison.
"Vincent Walters is accused of committing a number of crimes that landed him on our most wanted fugitive list," said David Harlow, Assistant Director of the U.S. Marshals Investigative Operations Division. "Thanks to the hard work of our Deputy U.S. Marshals, local law enforcement and Mexican law enforcement partners, we were able to bring Walters in to face the consequences for his laundry list of accused crimes."
More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:
Leave a Comment:
Wow another mouth to feed in the prison system, maybe we should ship him out to a deserted island in the middle of the pacific ocean to fend for himself instead.......Save the taxpayers some money.......
Congratulations it only took 34 YEARS to catch one stupid drug dealer. F'n A-Holes!
This has got to be a first; an American running to Mexico to take a Mexicans job.
This guy was #1 on the FBI fugitive list ? Sounds like a bunch of propagada BS
Oh no remember what happened to chapman when he went to this country and retrieved serial rapist luster?
He should get Capital punishment; it woulds save us tax payers a lot of money.
Actually, it costs more to execute an inmate than it is to keep them in prison for life. (I know how crazy it sounds but it is true).
I'm an American living in Mexico for the past two years, leaving in October...thankfully and finally. But please take him USA, we don't want him here- he seems dangerous ; )
...You're not making any sense. ...You said you are moving back to USA but you want him to move here about the same time as you because you don't want him to live in Mexico for your final two months there??????
Doug Flutie is Mexican?? Whaaaat?
(For those that don't know who he is, look him up...stunning similarities...)
This mutt looks like mexican,but bring him back to fry.
#1, How do you know he is an American citizen?; #2; wouldn't it be nice to let him rot in the Mexican prisons instead of letting the US taxpayers pay his tab for the next 50 years? #3, you have to give the US Marshals credit: this guy has been on the big list since 1988!! 1988! Twenty four years! If it had not been for the murder charge, he would probably be off the list because of the Statute of Limitations by now. WOW! Wonder how old he is? Also wonder what sentence he will get for that murder charge hmmm? Maybe the taxpayers won't be supporting him for long after all!
all countries need to work together to arrest fugitives especially drug runners who usually harm other people--and countries need to help gather up all the sex traffickers-- and end world slavery
If it was a Mexican, on the Mexican most wanted list he would never be found in the USA. Even though he could be sitting in the heart of America collecting welfare and food stamps, we will never find him.
I don't know why they went after him... Hell a few more months and Obama would have made it impossible to resist the lure of comming back to the states with his compadres!