Man Arrested, Suspect Sought in Americans’ Slayings in Baja

Authorities arrested one man and identified another believed to be involved in a weekend crime spree that left three U.S. residents dead and one wounded along the Baja California coast.

Two men and a woman, all retirees in their 60s, were killed in attacks at two Rosarito Beach homes Thursday and Sunday, said Natividad Tapia, deputy chief homicide investigator for the Baja California Ministerial Police.

One of the men was believed to have shot his attacker twice before dying, Tapia said. Jose Luis Leon Ramirez was arrested Monday with a bullet in his leg.

Those killed included Timothy Eucrett, 67, and his wife, Joanna Cutler, 62, both of Arizona, and Hall Lloyd Scranton, 62, whose address was not immediately available.

Authorities found the bodies of Eucrett and Cutler in their home with multiple stab wounds and injuries believed to have been made by an iron bar and a bricklayer’s trowel. The home had been ransacked.

Three nights later, Scranton was killed when he went outside to investigate suspicious noises at his beach home in a trailer park in the Rosarito Beach area.

He was knifed, beaten with iron bars and struck with other metal objects by at least two men, but apparently was able to fire two shots before dying, authorities said.

Scranton’s wife fled the home and escaped in a pickup.

Police said Monday that they arrested Leon in connection with the Scranton slaying. They identified at least one man involved in the Eucrett and Cutler slayings, said Leonardo Cortez Tellez of the Baja California state justice department. The man’s identity was not released.