By Steve Neavling

A Mexican drug cartel leader on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list was captured in Mexico on Saturday, according to reports.

Jose Rodolfo Villarreal-Hernández, also known as “El Gato,” is accused of ordering the 2013 murder of a lawyer in Southlake, Texas. 

Villarreal-Hernández was taken into custody in an operation that included the INTERPOL and other law enforcement agencies, Univision Dallas-Fort Worth reported.

The bureau was offering up to a $1 million reward for information leading to the suspect’s arrest.  

“Jose Rodolfo Villarreal-Hernandez is charged with orchestrating a brutal murder that took place in broad daylight at a busy shopping center. The shooter and his accomplices showed no regard for the victim, his wife, or the innocent bystanders who witnessed the murder,” Matthew J. DeSarno, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Dallas Field Office, said in a statement in June 2020. “The FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives program allows us to bring this case to the eyes and ears of citizens around the world. We will not rest until Villarreal-Hernandez is apprehended and made to answer for these charges in court.”

Villarreal-Hernandez was the 524th person to be added to the “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list. 

“The FBI will continue to use its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives program to locate and arrest violent criminals like Jose Rodolfo Villarreal-Hernandez,” Calvin A. Shivers, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, said. “We will bring to justice those individuals who commit violent acts and threaten the safety of our citizens and our community. However, in order for us to be effective, we need the public’s assistance. We encourage you to reach out to the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI if you witness a crime or have information that is beneficial to an ongoing investigation.”

#FGR obtuvo legal detención de una persona que es solicitada por autoridades de #EUA, probable responsable en delitos de acecho interestatal y asociación delictuosa para cometer homicidio. #EUA tiene 60 días para presentar solicitud formal de extradición. https://t.co/89m99DyzxE pic.twitter.com/Nyr42fSbrO

— FGR México (@FGRMexico) January 8, 2023

By Steve Neavling

A man accused of being involved in the fatal shooting of a DEA agent at the Tucson Amtrak Station in October 2021 was never charged in connection with the murder. 

Devonte Okeith Mathis was sitting in the back of the train with 24-year-old Darrion Taylor when DEA Agent Michael Garbo spotted Mathis retrieve several bags. 

Taylor is accused of fatally shooting Garbo and wounding a city police officer before barricading himself in the bathroom. Taylor died at the scene. 

Although authorities said Mathis was involved in the shooting, he was never charged in connection with it, KVOA.com reports.

Instead, Mathis was charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana. 

Mathis has pleaded not guilty to that charge and is set to go to trial in April. 

It’s not clear why Mathis wasn’t charged in the shooting. 

By Allan Lengel

As the one-month anniversary of the University of Idaho murders investigation passes, people are expressing frustration. Four students were stabbed to death in a home near campus on the night of Nov. 13 and the killer or killers are at large.

A former FBI agent Pete Yachmetz tells the New York Post that the Moscow, Idaho police department should relinquish its lead role to the FBI.

“I think the Moscow Police Department is in over its head. I think they’re drowning,” Pete Yachmetz, a security consultant and former FBI agent, tells The Post. “They don’t have the resources to properly address this type of crime.”

The police department in 2019 said it had 37 sworn-in police officers. The department is , is still being backed by 46 FBI investigators, 13 Idaho State Police investigators and 15 of its uniformed staff, the Post reports.

“I think it might be time for them to relinquish the lead agency designation,” Yachmetz said. “The lead agency is the one who makes all the determinations for how the investigation progresses.”

By Steve Neavling

Closing arguments are scheduled for Wednesday in the trial of former Border Patrol Agent Juan David Ortiz, who is accused of killing four women in Laredo, Texas, in September 2018. 

The murder trial of Juan David Ortiz began on Nov. 28. 

During the trial, prosecutors played a recording for jurors of Ortiz allegedly confessing. He said he wanted to “clean up the streets” of sex workers, whom he referred to as “trash” and “so dirty.”

One juror fainted when shown the autopsy photos.

The victims were Guiselda Alicia Hernandez, 34, Claudine Anne Luera, 42, Janelle Ortiz, 28, and Melissa Ramirez, 29. 

Ortiz found the women on the side of the road and killed them in rural parts of Webb County, prosecutors said.

Ortiz was arrested after a sex worker who suspected Ortiz had killer her friend was in a white pickup truck with the alleged killer when he pulled out a gun and grabbed her shirt. She managed to escape, and he fled.

The woman flagged down a state trooper, and after a pursuit, police found the 35-year-old hiding in a hotel parking lot at 2:30 a.m.

Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty but changed their minds after speaking to the victims’ families, who unanimously preferred that he spend the rest of his life in prison. 

By Steve Neavling

Convicted drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, who was imprisoned for the murder of DEA Agent Enrique Camarena and other crimes, has been granted home confinement by a Mexican court. 

Felix Gallardo, 76, who was considered the godfather of Mexican drug smuggling and the co-founder of the Guadalajara cartel, has been behind bars since 1989. 

He was sentenced to prison for 40 years in 1989 after being convicted of crimes that include racketeering, firearms possession and bribery. 

In 2017, he was re-sentenced by a Mexican court to 37 years for the murder of Camarena.

Last week, a judge with the Seventh District of Federal Criminal Proceedings court granted home confinement to Felix Gallardo due to his poor health, the Daily Mail reports.

A court in Mexico City denied a similar request for home confinement in February 2019. 

Felix Gallardo said in an August 2021 jail house interview with Telemundo that he was in poor health and that “half of my body (is) paralyzed.”

He also lost vision in one eye and is deaf in one ear, has undergone eight hernia removal surgeries and injured his arm when he fell in prison. 

Camarena was 37 when he was killed. He left behind a wife and three children. 

By Steve Neavling

Authorities have captured one of the U.S. Marshals’ 15 most wanted fugitives in El Salvador after he was on the run for six years. 

Raymond McLeod, a 37-year-old former Marine, was wanted for the 2016 murder of his girlfriend Krystal Mitchell, who was found strangled to death in an apartment in San Diego. 

In April 2021, the Marshals placed McLeod on their “Most Wanted” list of top 15 fugitives and issued a reward of $50,000 for information leading to his arrest. 

At the time, U.S. Marshals and the San Diego Police Department believed McLeod had fled through Mexico to Central America following Mitchel’s death. 

El Salvadoran law enforcement arrested McLeod without incident on Monday. 

“I am extremely gratified to hear the news of Raymond McLeod’s arrest without incident,” said U.S. Marshals Director Ronald Davis. “It is our sincere hope that his capture brings some sense of relief to Krystal Mitchell’s family, especially her mother, Josephine Wentzel, who has worked so diligently with law enforcement these past years to see this day of justice arrive.”

By Steve Neavling

Three men have been charged in the killing of notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger in a West Virginia prison. 

Bulger, who was 89 and wheelchair bound, was found beaten to death inside his cell on Oct. 30, 2018, just hours after he was transferred to a West Virginia prison nicknamed “Misery Mountain.” The transfer came after the wheelchair-bound ex-mob boss threatened a Florida prison nurse who suggested he see an outside heart doctor.

Fotios Geas, Paul J. DeCologero and Sean McKinnon were indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, The New York Times reports.

The men were incarcerated with Bulger in the Hazelton prison in West Virginia. 

Bulger was serving two life sentences for his 2013 conviction of participating in 11 murders. 

To outsiders, Bulger’s murderers had been a mystery for nearly four years. But the three men who were charged had been sent to solitary confinement after the fatal attack. 

It’s not clear why nearly four years has passed until charges were filed. 

By Steve Neavling

Yaser Abdel Said, who had been on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List from 2014 until he was captured last year, was convicted of capitol murder Tuesday. 

The 65-year-old man shot his two teenager daughters, Amina and Sarah, on New Year’s Day 2008. 

A Dallas County jury found Said guilty after four hours of deliberations, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports.

The judge sentenced Said to prison to life without parole. 

“My client has told me from the start that he didn’t do it,” Brad Lollar, one of Said’s attorneys, said after the verdict.

Said’s former wife, Patricia Owens, said her husband’s actions are unforgivable. 

“You can keep those evil eyes glaring at me,” Owens said. “I don’t have to worry about you anymore. My kids were my world.”

Said disappeared after a capital murder warrant was issued for his arrest in January 2008. 

He was captured in Justin, Texas, in August 2020. He had been driving a taxi for a living. 

Established in March 1950, the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list has helped track down hundreds of suspects. Said was the 504th person added to the list.