Fallbrook

Sheriff’s homicide officers have arrested a 38-year-old unemployed laborer in the killing of an 89-year-old Fallbrook man Aug. 11.

Jorge Herrera Vargas is being held without bail in the County Jail at Vista.

Vargas was arrested Sunday night at a ranch near Rice Canyon Road and California 76 after the victim’s pickup truck was stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border by Customs agents.

Questioning of the occupants of the stolen pickup led to Vargas, a county Sheriff’s Department spokesman said. The unidentified occupants of the pickup were released without charges after questioning at the Fallbrook sheriff’s substation.

The victim, Leslie Kenneth Loehr, was found dead in his home by a neighbor Aug. 12. He was bound hand and foot and was lying on his kitchen floor. His home had been ransacked and the contents of a safe were missing.

An autopsy indicated that Loehr had died of suffocation, although there were no visible signs of strangulation on the body.

Loehr lived alone on his 2-acre citrus ranch on Georgine Road. The area of the city was the site of 17 burglaries last year by a “power-off” bandit who severed power lines to disable burglar alarms before breaking into homes. A Sheriff’s Department spokesman said, however, that there have been no reports of similar break-ins in about eight months.