Phoenix Officials Arrest Murder Suspect : Homicide: Detectives say the 29-year-old man was with the victim, who has not yet been identified, in an Anaheim bar.

Working on a tip from Orange County sheriff’s detectives, police in Phoenix have arrested a man suspected of killing a woman and dumping her nude body alongside Ortega Highway near San Juan Capistrano three months ago.

Francisco Martinez Soriano, 29, was held without bail for the stabbing of a woman whose body was found Jan. 27, Lt. Richard J. Olson said.

The arrest capped an extensive investigation, during which homicide detectives went to newspapers, locally and in Mexico, to circulate a sketch and description of the victim in an attempt to identify her and possibly the killer.

A break in the case came on Feb. 6 when a woman, who saw the sketch in a local Spanish-language newspaper, called authorities and “was able to identify the victim as a friend she knew from a bar in Anaheim,” Olson said.

The woman said she last saw the victim at the bar in the early morning hours of Jan. 27, he said.

Authorities have not been able to positively confirm the victim’s identity and have looked for family members believed to be living in a small town outside Mexico City.

Meanwhile, homicide detectives learned that Soriano was at the bar at the same time as the victim and “began to center their investigation on (him),” Olson said.

Soriano’s arrest occurred shortly after investigators “obtained information that Soriano and (a) female were in the Phoenix, Ariz., area looking for work,” said Olson, declining to elaborate.

Phoenix police were contacted about the case and given photos of Soriano, Olson said. On Monday, authorities in Phoenix advised sheriff’s deputies that Soriano had been arrested and was in their custody.

Homicide investigators from Orange County went to Phoenix Tuesday to interview Soriano, who is expected to be transferred to Orange County Jail within the next few days, Olson said.

He said Soriano is not believed to be a suspect in any of the other murders that have occurred in the Lake Elsinore area, where about a dozen women, many of them prostitutes, have been killed over the past several months. Authorities fear those slayings may be the work of a serial killer.