Suspect in 1981 Attempted Slayings Is Held

A man sought for more than a decade in the shootings of two Garden Grove brothers was in custody Thursday after he was discovered working at a fruit stand near Disneyland, police said.

Garden Grove police and FBI agents arrested Delfino Mendez Gutierrez, 46, on a warrant for attempted murder on Wednesday at the Strawberry Stand, 1854 S. Harbor Blvd.

Gutierrez is suspected of shooting Adan and Ramon Tirado after an argument in March, 1981, about noise at their Buena Street apartment complex, said Garden Grove Detective Ron Shave. Adan, now 45, and Ramon, now 49, survived the shooting, police said.

Gutierrez was named as a prime suspect in the shootings shortly afterward, but he apparently fled to Mexico, Shave said. Shave said Gutierrez came back to California as a farm laborer twice during the past 11 years, working fields from Orange County to the Central Valley.

Investigators said that they did not know what Gutierrez did in Mexico but that he stayed with family members in the state of Michoacan.

Federal agents who were asked to help police locate Gutierrez after he left the state followed up on leads and learned two months ago that Gutierrez was back in Orange County, Shave said.

Investigators said that as time passes, it becomes more difficult to track down suspects, especially if they have fled the country. The FBI, for example, did not know where Gutierrez was while in Mexico.

“Over time, naturally, a lot of the leads you have initially die out. People move. People forget things. The leads just kind of wash out sometimes,” said FBI spokesman Gary Morley. But with the Gutierrez case, Morley said, federal agents checked on old leads and were able to confirm that he had moved back to California and was living in Anaheim.

“You just start to accumulate violent crimes and somewhere you have to set priorities,” Shave said. “You just hope you have an efficient system (for old cases). It seems to have worked.”

Gutierrez was being held in lieu of $125,000 bail in Orange County Jail in Santa Ana, Garden Grove police said.