Suspect Tracked to Mexico, Held in 1997 Shooting of Westminster Man
A Garden Grove murder suspect who fled the country two years ago and began a new life as a business owner in Mexico has been arrested after investigators traced his whereabouts through his telephone calls to associates.
Joel David Baptiste, 23, was handed over to FBI agents at the border Thursday night by Mexican Federal Police. He is being held at the Orange County Jail and is to be arraigned on a first-degree murder charge early next week, according to Westminster Police Det. Sam Miller.
Police said Baptiste disappeared shortly after being questioned in the 1997 murder of Steven Wayne Preston, a 32-year-old Westminster man who had gotten into an argument with one of Baptiste’s friends.
Preston was shot to death, then dumped in a ravine off the Garden Grove Freeway. Wayne Weston Burleson was convicted of being the triggerman and is serving a 25-years-to-life prison sentence, Miller said.
Baptiste is suspected of driving the car in which Preston was shot and then helping dispose of the body, police said.
Investigators knew Baptiste had fled to Mexico but didn’t know his whereabouts until they traced phone calls to a residence in a small coastal town outside Tijuana.
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