U.S. and Mexico cooperate to nab suspected killer

When 34-year-old Ana Maria Garcia went missing last month, the Ontario woman’s family immediately suspected her boyfriend was somehow involved, authorities said.

There was a trail of blood leading from the couple’s bedroom to the living room and, like Garcia, Mario Reyes was nowhere to be found.

“We knew right away,” said Garcia’s brother, Lorenzo Garcia. “Because he never left her alone for a moment. He was very possessive.”

Investigators began to monitor credit and debit cards belonging to the couple, and pieced together a trail of evidence that seemed to indicate that Reyes, 35, had killed Garcia and fled to Mexico to avoid prosecution, authorities said.

In the past, that often would mean months or even years before a suspect was apprehended. But with increasing cooperation between U.S. authorities and their counterparts in Mexico, hiding out south of the border isn’t as easy as it used to be -- as Reyes was about to find out.

Garcia, the single mother of a 9-year-old daughter and a maintenance supervisor at UC Riverside, was reported missing Oct. 7. Her parents called Ontario police after discovering the bloody scene in the East Yale Avenue home she shared with Reyes, an unemployed construction worker who family members said Garcia was planning to leave.

Unable to locate Garcia or Reyes, detectives contacted bank officials and asked for a list of recent transactions on credit and debit cards belonging to both, said Det. Byron Lee, one of the investigators on the case.

Investigators determined that someone had been using Garcia’s debit card at ATMs and a Ralphs supermarket in the Inglewood area, Lee said.

Detectives went to the locations where the card had been used and seized surveillance video that allegedly showed Reyes making the transactions, Lee said.

In at least one of the videos that captured footage of Reyes’ vehicle, there was “what appeared to be a body wrapped in a blanket,” the detective said. When investigators followed up on the transaction at Ralphs, they learned that Reyes had bought two dozen roses.

Believing that Reyes may have dumped the body, detectives searched nearby Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area as well as trash bins in the area, but found nothing.

Meanwhile, other investigators were following up on ATM transactions in the San Diego area. Those led to the discovery of the borrowed pickup truck Garcia was driving before she went missing. It was parked in a lot at the San Ysidro border crossing, and detectives found a large amount of blood in the vehicle, Lee said.

Witnesses would later tell police that they saw the driver of the truck walking toward the Mexican border. At that point, Ontario police sought the help of a fugitive task force led by the U.S. Marshals Service in Los Angeles.

Although the Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force is run by federal agents, it counts many local officers among its members and specializes in tracking down people charged with state crimes such as murder and other violent offenses.

Task force members began alerting their counterparts in Mexico to be on the lookout for Reyes, whose photo they had sent out along with a bulletin about his alleged crime, said Deputy U.S. Marshal Sal Reyes. Working sources on both sides of the border, investigators learned that Reyes had met with family members in Tijuana last week. They attempted to arrest him there Oct. 29 but he was already gone.

Then there were several reported sightings in the coastal town of San Felipe, where Reyes had landed a job as night watchman at a local resort.

Mexican police again tried to arrest him, but the suspect had somehow gotten word of the raid and fled into the local mountains, said Sal Reyes, the deputy marshal.

Struggling with record violence of their own, Mexican authorities seemed to be growing wary of the cat-and-mouse game, he said.

But when locals in San Felipe reported that the haggard-looking suspect had returned from the mountains looking for food and water, they agreed to make another run at him.

This time, they swarmed the town with state and local police and even brought in the military, which helped set up a perimeter with Humvees and helicopters. Mario Reyes was captured without incident. He allegedly confessed to killing Garcia, and told authorities where they would find her body.

On Wednesday, Ontario police served a search warrant on an Inglewood storage facility and discovered her badly decomposed body, officials said.

The two dozen roses that Mario Reyes had bought at Ralphs were placed atop Garcia’s remains, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the scene.

Mario Reyes has been returned to the U.S. and booked on suspicion of murder.

Lee, the Ontario detective who also serves on the fugitive task force, said Mexican authorities are largely to thank for the suspect’s capture.

“There’s just wholesale mayhem down there right now, so we really do appreciate what they’re doing for us,” he said.

“The last thing they need is a homicide fugitive going down into their country, so they’re anxious to get rid of them.”

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scott.glover@latimes.com