After 9 Years, Detective Helps Catch His Man : Arrest: Suspect in rape and slaying of 3-year-old North Hollywood girl is captured in Mexico.

All Los Angeles Police Detective Ted Ball knew from a tipster was that the suspected child killer and rapist he had been pursuing for nine years lived in Matamoros, Mexico, worked as a carpenter and drove a blue car.

Reyes Mejia Rosales was one of the LAPD’s 10 most-wanted fugitives. In 1986 he had allegedly killed a 3-year-old North Hollywood girl, crippled her mother and then fled to Mexico where he lived under assumed names. Ball had searched for Rosales in about 20 Mexican cities, repeatedly asking residents if they recognized the man pictured in the LAPD’s wanted poster.

Then, in Matamoros last Tuesday, Ball heard the words that ended his search. Ball said a resident of the town pointed toward a residential neighborhood and told him, “Yeah, there’s a carpenter who lives down there.”

Ball and other investigators were led to an small building. Parked nearby was a blue car.

A few hours later, Rosales arrived, spotted the police waiting for him and took off in a run along the rooftops of the border town, Ball said. Rosales was arrested about 100 yards from the American border.

On Monday, Ball was still savoring the arrest. “I’ve searched for this guy for so long,” he said. “This was one of the most tragic cases I’ve ever handled, having to attend the autopsy of a 3-year-old baby who was sexually molested, then executed.”

Ball said that in 1986, Rosales was infatuated with Martha Garcia, a married co-worker at a sewing plant who rebuffed his advances. Rosales, himself married and with a pregnant wife at the time, allegedly lured Garcia, then 27, to a North Hollywood restaurant on April 22 under the pretense of helping her with her taxes.

When Garcia, accompanied by her daughter, Cathy Velasco, refused his advances there, Rosales allegedly led them into his car, parked on a deserted side street and pulled a gun, shooting Garcia in the head and neck as she struggled with him, Ball said.

Rosales then allegedly threw her from the car, raped Cathy and shot the girl in the head when he finished, Ball said. As residents emerged from their homes, Rosales drove off, he said.

Although Garcia was expected to die from her wounds, she survived, but for several years she was paralyzed from the neck down. She still uses a wheelchair, though she has begun to regain the use of one of her arms, Ball said. News of Rosales’ arrest gave her great satisfaction, he said.

“She was very elated to find that this step has been accomplished,” Ball said. But “her life is never going to be the same.”

Ball said that in Mexico, Rosales moved from town to town. North Hollywood detectives couldn’t find him and eventually he was placed on the LAPD’s most-wanted list. Even after Ball was transferred Downtown to the Robbery-Homicide Division, the detective pursued the case, checking leads every time he was in Mexico on official business.

Then Ball got the tip that Rosales was living in Matamoros. He and LAPD Detective Gilbert Moya of the department’s foreign prosecution unit went to Brownsville, Tex., where they were joined by deputies from the local Sheriff’s Department. The American police crossed the border, joined up with their Mexican counterparts and started questioning Matamoros residents in areas that resembled the description of Rosales’ neighborhood.

For three days, they asked questions and got no helpful answers. “We started to believe that here’s another of those leads that’s never going to materialize,” Ball said.

When they got to the building residents had shown them and knocked on a door, it was answered by Rosales’ wife. She told the police that her husband was not home.

Then Rosales’ son poked his head out and said, “Daddy will be back at 3 o’clock.”

The police waited. When Rosales returned, Ball said, “The great chase was on.”

Police followed Rosales through the streets of the town, onto the roofs of bungalows and shacks. Rosales jumped to the ground from the roof of a two-story building and broke for the border. Police caught him just in front of the Rio Grande.

The Mexican government is expected to try Rosales in Mexico and take sworn statements from witnesses in the United States, Ball said.

Ball said Rosales was surprised at the charges lodged against him: murder, attempted murder and sexual assault. He thought he had killed Martha Garcia that night in 1986.

“He was very surprised,” Ball said, “to hear that she was alive.”