“Four years and four months ago, we stood in this very room and vowed never to give up on bringing the killer to justice,” San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan said at a news conference after the hearing. attempt to evade justice by”
A witness saw McLeod slap Mitchell in the face at a bar in the early hours of June 10, 2016, Stephan said. The Good Samaritan tried to interfere and the couple left. Soon after, a surveillance camera at his friends’ neighboring building recorded him. finally his hand around Mitchell’s throat in an elevator.
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Police won a 911 call 11 hours later and discovered Mitchell’s body dead in the apartment. His death was called murder by strangulation, Stephan said.
“This strangulation was so violent that there were 3 distinct fractures in his voicemail,” Stephan said. “McLeod then took his car, parked it at the airport, rented a car and went to Mexico. “
Deputy Field Marshal Joseph O’Callaghan said an anonymous informant told the government that a McLeod-like user worked as an English instructor in Sonsonate, El Salvador, about 40 miles west of the nation’s capital.
Deputy Field Marshal Francisco Barajas verified the runway and coordinated an investigation with authorities, O’Callaghan said. They monitored the school, met the suspect and captured him in the classroom, where he used the pseudonym “Jack Donovan. “
“Francis never stopped,” he said. He was in this case day and night, and although there are other families we seek to help, he has been at the forefront. “
Since McLeod was in El Salvador illegally, the procedure for returning to the United States advanced rapidly, he added. Salvadoran police transported him to San Salvador, the country’s capital, where they treated him through Interpol and immigration officials and then deported him.
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He arrived in Los Angeles by plane on Tuesday.
McLeod hid in Sonsonate for about two and a half years, investigators said.
McLeod, the first suspect to be named to the sheriff’s list of 15 people wanted by up to 15 others with a $50,000 severance package, according to authorities. The anonymous informant is expected to get paid, but authorities have provided few details.
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Mitchell’s mother, former police detective Josephine Wentzel, left her retreat to track down her daughter’s killer. He told Fox News Digital earlier this week that McLeod had been hiding in Sonsonate’s Colonia Angelica neighborhood, described by locals as “a bit dangerous. “
McLeod, a former Marine, known to be a “heavy drinker” and had a history of domestic violence before Mitchell’s murder, the government says. He was considered armed and dangerous and also trained as a bodybuilder.
While hiding in El Salvador during the coronavirus pandemic, he drank less, returned to the gym and was observed at the local soccer stadium, Wentzel told Fox News Digital on Thursday. He had no car and was occasionally seen walking around Sonsonate.
At Friday’s news conference, he said that as part of the investigation he met a woman in Guatemala who accused McLeod of violently beating his neighbor’s daughter and who uncovered evidence that he possibly beat a woman in Belize.
“And he suspected, he only suspected, that he had killed the owner of an inn, an old man he discovered dead in the back of a swimming pool,” he said. “So yes, it’s very dangerous. “
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Stephan said other main points about McLeod’s capture may simply not be published, but that they will be turned over to the court as proceedings progress.
He faces 25 years in prison if convicted and is due back in court on Jan. 26.
A sentence handed down on him ordered his detention without bail.
Fox News’ Jenna Miller and Kelly Skehen contributed to this report.
Michael Ruiz is a Fox News reporter Digital. La story can be sent to michael. ruiz@fox. com and on Twitter: @mikerreports