The prime suspect in a 23-year-old cold case has been arrested after being caught at a traffic stop in Ohio.
Juan Carlos Munoz, 52, was on the run for more than two decades after failing to appear on kidnapping and gross sexual imposition charges, according to the U.S Marshals Service.
The Ashtabula County Sheriff’s Office had issued a warrant in January 2002 as they searched for their fugitive but they never managed to capture him.
This past year, a U.S. Marshals task force in northern Ohio took over the search for Munoz, and on Tuesday, they helped apprehend him.
Federal officers “positively identified” Munoz getting into a vehicle and driving away from a location where they had been surveilling him, according to officials.
Later, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office pulled over Munoz for a traffic violation, which is when Munoz gave a fake Ohio ID and claimed to be another man, the U.S. Marshals said.
After a “swift” investigation and a collection of fingerprints, federal officers confirmed the driver was indeed Munoz.
Munoz was arrested and booked at the Lake County Jail to await extradition to Ashtabula County.
“After 23 years of evading arrest, our task force arrested this deceptive and dangerous fugitive,” U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott said in a statement.
“This fugitive went to extreme lengths to avoid being arrested, including assuming another identity over twenty years ago and has been living under that alias all this time.”
