Boyfriend of Slain Pasadena Dancer Held

Pasadena police have arrested the boyfriend of a 17-year-old flamenco dancer and Pasadena City College student who was stabbed to death last year, officials announced Thursday.

Johnny Andres Ortiz, 27, had fled to Mexico City and was working in the sprawling capital when he was caught Tuesday by Pasadena detectives and Mexican federal police.

His car was recovered at the border last February, shortly after the body of Maria Isabel Fernandez was found in a pool of blood in her Harkness Avenue home, on the same wooden platform where she had practiced her dance steps.

“I have not slept and I have not been able to cry,” said the victim’s father, Miguel Fernandez, at a news conference in Pasadena. “My focus has been on finding this guy and bringing him to justice.

“I could not cry until this morning.”

Fernandez trembled as he unwrapped two framed photos of his daughter in her blue flamenco dress, a glowing smile on her face. He described her as a graceful and independent spirit, unwilling to take advice on her darkening relationship with Ortiz.

Her friends have said the man was consumed with jealousy, paging her half a dozen times at the movies, showing up uninvited at her dance practices and relentlessly accusing her of lying. When they broke up, his mother even called her, begging her to take him back because he was starving himself to death.

On Feb. 5 last year, Ortiz’s father made a fateful call to police, saying Ortiz had admitted over the phone that he had done something terrible to Isabel. Police checked the home and found her body, stabbed more than 40 times.

Ortiz’s capture ends a yearlong investigation during which three detectives were assigned to the case full time. They traveled to Mexico, El Paso and San Francisco and interviewed dozens of witnesses, said Pasadena Police Chief Bernard Melekian.

Investigators found Ortiz after getting a tip from a viewer of the Spanish-language talk show “Cristina” last month. Fernandez’s father appeared on the Miami-based show, which is broadcast in Mexico, to plead with the public to find his daughter’s killer.

Three Pasadena detectives were sent to Mexico City on Feb. 7 and spent a week looking for Ortiz, who is a Colombian national, to no avail. But on March 14, two investigators returned and found the suspect working a full-time job with a new identity, officials said.

Melekian said Ortiz is being held in Mexico City by Interpol and will probably be remanded to the United States for trial in coming weeks. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti had reviewed the case and decided it “would not result in a requirement for the death penalty,” Melekian said.

That decision allows authorities to avoid a thorny issue, because the Mexican government does not extradite suspects to the United States if they face capital punishment. A man alleged to have murdered four people in nearby Rosemead last summer, for example, is free in Mexico because the district attorney insists on the death sentence, officials said.

On Thursday, Fernandez’s father expressed gratitude to police, whom he formerly criticized as having been slow to respond on the day of the murder.

Two hours before the suspect’s father called, a neighbor called 911 and reported that she had heard screaming from the victim’s house. Officers arrived, but they left after 20 minutes.

“If I was Mr. Fernandez, I would be critical too,” said Melekian. “But I’m sure that if they kicked that door open, it wouldn’t have saved her life.”

The Pasadena City Council had offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of her killer. It is not clear whether the Mexican caller will get the money, Melekian said.