Fairfax County Police Department said they never forgot about Jose Lazaro Cruz’s victim and her family
After evading Virginia law enforcement for over thirty years, a man suspected of killing his wife was finally extradited back to the United States on Thursday.
The search for Jose Lazaro Cruz began in April 1991, when his wife Ana Jurado, 24, was found in West Falls Church with trauma to her upper body. She was declared dead at the scene and Fairfax County Police Department officers then identified Lazaro Cruz as the suspect.
However, Lazaro Cruz escaped to El Salvador early the next month. There was no way of getting him back as the Central American country did not allow extradition.
FCPD officers did travel to El Salvador in 1999, to gather crucial information on Lazaro Cruz’s whereabouts and that evidence was added to the case against him.
In 2022, Lazaro Cruz went to visit family in Costa Rica, but authorities there detained him at the border with Nicaragua. Then began the effort to extradite him back to the U.S.