Suspects Found 2 Years After Costa Mesa Slaying

A man and a woman who eluded Costa Mesa police for nearly two years were arrested early Friday in Riverside in connection with the shooting death of the woman’s husband, authorities said.

Roberto Tovar Ramirez, 40, and Graciela Delacruz, 42, both formerly of Santa Ana and now living in Perris, were arrested at 2 a.m. after police staked out a Greyhound bus terminal in Riverside and found them on a bus bound for the East Coast, said Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Ron Smith.

Ramirez was being held in the Costa Mesa Jail on suspicion of murder, and Delacruz was being held in Orange County Jail on charges of aiding and abetting a suspected felon, Smith said. Each is being held in lieu of $250,000. They are to be arraigned Tuesday in Harbor Municipal Court.

Smith said the couple fled after the Dec. 26, 1988, shooting death of Delacruz’s husband, Jeremias Diaz Delacruz, 41, of Santa Ana.

The husband, who was driving a vanload of friends through Costa Mesa, had spotted his wife in Ramirez’s car. He followed Ramirez to a cul-de-sac, and when the men got out of their vehicles, Ramirez allegedly fired two fatal shots at Jeremias Delacruz and shot twice more at the passengers in the van. No one else was injured.

Based on a tip on the suspects’ whereabouts Thursday, police first went to their home in Perris, only to find that they had been warned and had left a few hours earlier, said Smith, who heads the department’s homicide investigation unit.

Smith said the couple apparently traveled from Perris to Los Angeles and then boarded a cross-country bus.

Police staked out local bus stations and arrested the couple without incident when they arrived at the Greyhound depot in downtown Riverside about 2 a.m. Friday.