“He probably doesn’t want to stay in a Mexican jail,” Jones said. “Our jails are nicer.”
Cruz, 31, is being detained in Mexico City without bond following his arrest on March 18. The arrest was the culmination of a 5½-year investigation and manhunt that involved the sheriff’s office fugitive division, Hamilton Police Department, Butler County Prosecutor’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice and the Mexican Federal Police.
Investigators said they are now positive they have found Butler County’s most wanted suspect. Jones said the FBI notified him Wednesday morning that fingerprints confirm the man in custody is the suspect accused of kidnapping and raping a 9-year-old Hamilton girl on Father’s Day 2005.
According to police reports, the suspect allegedly snatched the girl off of her bicycle and took her to a home in the 700 block of Sycamore Street, where he raped her. The girl later escaped, ran home naked and told family members she had been hurt by a man near there, according to police records.
The alleged victim, now 14 years old, has been adopted by another family and lives in the Greater Cincinnati area, sheriff’s officials said. The girl’s biological father and grandmother have since moved to Oxford, according to their former Sycamore Street neighbors.
Cruz has several known aliases, including Richard Mario Martinez-Morales, Richard Mario Martinez, Richard Martinez, Mario Martinez, Armando Fernandez and Mario Lupe Garcia.
He was indicted by a Butler County grand jury in December 2005 on four counts of rape and a charge of kidnapping. But he fled the area and then the country before being taken into custody. His case has already been assigned to Butler County Common Pleas Judge Keith Spaeth, though a trial is not likely soon.
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