Mexico Will Try Fugitive Wanted in Slayings of 4

Resolving an international standoff, authorities Wednesday said a U.S. citizen who fled to Mexico after allegedly killing four people in Baldwin Park will be tried for the slayings in Mexico under that country’s laws.

Mexico had declined to extradite David “Spooky” Alvarez, 29, because Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti refused to promise not to seek the death penalty against Alvarez, who is on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List.

Mexico does not have the death penalty, and under its extradition treaty with the United States it can refuse to extradite a U.S. citizen unless assured that the person will not face execution.

Earlier this month, on the eve of a Mexican national’s execution in Virginia, Mexican authorities warned that if Garcetti did not relent they would have to free Alvarez because he was not charged with crimes in Mexico.

But on Wednesday, Mexican authorities told Garcetti they had found a way to prosecute Alvarez in Mexico. At least two of Alvarez’s four alleged victims were Mexican citizens, and Alvarez himself may also be a Mexican citizen because his parents reportedly were born there, said Jose Angel Pescador Osuna, Mexico’s consul general in Los Angeles.

If convicted in Mexican court, Alvarez faces up to 100 years in prison without parole, Pescador added.

Garcetti said he was “pleased Mr. Alvarez will not be freed and will face some measure of justice.”

Prosecutors say Alvarez was seeking his estranged wife when he and his then-girlfriend, Trinia Aguirre, 21, burst into a modest Baldwin Park home in September 1996 and held an extended family hostage for more than an hour.

The pair allegedly bound and gagged the seven victims, turned up the air-conditioning and television, then fatally shot two girls--ages 8 and 12--and two men, and critically wounded three adults, before fleeing.

Aguirre was arrested weeks later, but Alvarez eluded a nationwide manhunt until his May 20 arrest in Tijuana.

Alvarez was transported to Mexico City, where he remains in custody. He waived his right to contest extradition. But when Garcetti refused to guarantee that Alvarez would not face the death penalty, the case went into limbo.

“We thought this was going to be very easy, because we thought we would get a letter saying the death penalty” would not be applied, Pescador said.

But Garcetti responded that waiving the death penalty in Alvarez’s case would set a dangerous precedent, making Mexico a haven for criminals. Other U.S. officials, from Sheriff Sherman Block to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, urged Mexico to extradite Alvarez.

On Wednesday, Garcetti acknowledged that Mexico had the right to keep Alvarez, who was born in Los Angeles, and said the extradition treaty between the two nations needs to be revised to “plug this hole.”

Garcetti also pledged cooperation with Mexican prosecutors in the upcoming Alvarez trial.