A suspected killer is behind bars in Texas after an alleged would-be murder target told police he pretended to be dead in order to save his own life.

Eiber Gabriel Sira-Vargas, 29, was arrested in connection with the July killing of 19-year-old Alexis Jose Vegas, who was found by a stretch of road with multiple gunshot wounds. According to San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT, a passerby spotted Vegas’ body near a drainage ditch off a stretch of southbound U.S. Highway 281 at around 3:30 p.m. on July 1. Police found shell casings and zip ties near the victim’s body — but no clues as to who the killer was.

More from Law&Crime: Wife makes daring escape after husband kidnaps her at gunpoint, flees in vehicle with suspect on top of car: Police

Investigators got a break in the case, however, when they learned about an armed robbery that left a man shot, injured, and hospitalized just hours before Vegas’ body was found. Local CBS affiliate KENS reported that the man, who has not been publicly identified, was initially “not forthcoming” with police, according to the arrest affidavit.

“F–k that! Just kill me now!” a murder suspect told cops as they had him handcuffed on the floor of a Walmart this summer.

Cops in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said that the defendant Jamil Lewis, had been caught attempting to shoplift a holster from the store on July 29, according to The Albuquerque Journal. He allegedly slipped a gun into it, and then put it into his waistband. Weeks earlier on June 8, Lewis, had shot and killed Gerald Ibuado, 44, and injured the man’s brother, police said.

Body camera video obtained by Law&Crime shows police rushing over to Lewis at the superstore on July 29 and giving chase as he — wearing a red “Chucky”-themed sweatshirt and shorts — ran off.

 

“Hey, stop running!” said the officer. “I’m going to shoot you!”

Lewis eventually stopped and lay prone. The ensuing arrest is somewhat chaotic, as he tenses up and yells as three officers manhandle him into handcuffs. He questions why they are detaining him and complains about them searching him in the store, preferring it outside.

“Why?” an officer asked rhetorically. “So you can run?”

More Law&Crime Coverage: ‘I took a lot of s—‘: Woman arrested after shoplifting more than $1K from Walmart as part of ‘game,’ deputies say

“I’m not going to run,” he said. “You guys already got me in handcuffs.”

That is all timed at about 1:30 p.m. The tone changed less than an hour later. Footage shows a decidedly calmer Lewis sitting in the back of a police vehicle, handcuffed and smoking with police help.

 

Lewis lamented his situation.

“It’s going to affect my son,” he said in the video. “It’s going to affect my mom.”

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More than two years after a Rhode Island woman went missing, her remains were found and the man suspected of her murder was finally arrested.

Mark Perkins, 64, was taken into custody on Wednesday after his vehicle’s GPS data was connected to the location of 44-year-old Charlotte Lester’s skeletal remains, which were found on Nov. 17 and identified through dental records. According to the Warwick Police Department, Perkins had been on their radar from the beginning but they lacked the evidence needed to make an arrest.

Authorities in Montana have a person in custody they believe murdered a man found dead with “chop wounds” inside a tent in a killing initially reported as a bear attack.

The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday in a Facebook post that a suspect in the slaying of 35-year-old Dustin Kjersem is in jail on unrelated charges. Deputies did not name the suspect and said charges related to the murder are forthcoming.

More from Law&Crime: Man slit girlfriend’s wrists, left her body ‘on the couch while he watched television before going to bed’: DA

Kjersem was last seen alive the afternoon of Oct. 10. He was camping in the Moose Creek canyon area and slated to meet up with friends on Oct. 11, said Sheriff Dan Springer. When he didn’t show up, his friends went looking for him. They found his tent shortly after 10 a.m. on Oct. 12 about 2.5 miles up Moose Creek Road. They looked inside, and found his mutilated body, Springer said. The caller indicated that Kjersem may have been the victim of a bear attack.

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Criminal Justice

Suspect in custody after courthouse explosion that injured several people

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 25, 2024, 4:05 pm CDT

Updated: Police were questioning a suspect Wednesday afternoon after he was arrested following an explosion at the Santa Maria Courthouse in California.

The Wednesday morning explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device, the Santa Barbara County sheriff’s office said in a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Police later identified the suspect as Nathaniel McGuire, 20, of Santa Maria, California, who had been scheduled for arraignment on a firearms charge on the day of the explosion.

McGuire allegedly threw a bag at a screening station when he entered the courthouse, causing an explosion in the hallway near the arraignment courtroom, according to a Sept. 25 press release by the Santa Barbara County sheriff’s office.

McGuire then ran to the parking lot, where he was detained by authorities, the sheriff’s office said. He was wearing body armor underneath his jacket when apprehended.

Six people injured in the explosion were treated and released from the Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria on Wednesday, the New York Times reports, citing information from a hospital spokesperson.

Darrel Parker, executive officer of the Santa Barbara Superior Court, said the injured people were thought to be bystanders, rather than court employees.

McGuire has been charged with felonies that include attempted murder, manufacturing an explosive device and use of an explosive device for attempted murder.

A witness at the courthouse, Shane Mellon, said he heard a loud bang, according to a report by KSBY cited by the Associated Press. The bailiff evacuated Mellon and others. In front of the courthouse, Mellon saw a smoldering sweater and saw a man screaming while four or five people were on top of him trying to restrain him.

“I think this could have been way worse than it was if not for the deputies just jumping on top of that guy,” Mellon told the broadcast station.

Other publications with early coverage of the explosion included Noozhawk and Reuters.

Updated Sept. 26 at 4:15 p.m. new information from the New York Times and the Santa Barbara County sheriff’s office’s press release.

The man who allegedly set fire to the door to Sen. Bernie Sanders office in Burlington, Vermont, has been arrested, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Authorities took Shant Soghomonian, also known as Michael Soghomonian, 35, into custody on Sunday. He’s accused of using an accelerant on the door of Sanders’ office at 1 Church Street on Friday morning, setting it ablaze and running away. The whole incident was captured on surveillance video, officials said.

A Georgia police officer has been indicted on charges that he deliberately failed to investigate his half brother as a potential suspect in a murder case.

D’Marquivius “D.J.” King, 25, has been indicted on a felony count of Violation of Oath of Office, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Friday. The indictment stems from the result of an investigation launched in February of last year over King’s handling of the investigation into the murder of a man named Javarreis Reid, who was shot to death in May 2021 at age 25.

King had been assigned to the case — but according to the GBI, he failed to fulfill his obligation as a police investigator.

Authorities used discarded cans of iced tea to obtain the DNA of a man in Texas to tie him to a murder in Florida.

Yesnin Salvador Bonilla-Iscoa, 30, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 52-year-old Maria De Los Angeles Paulino.

Paulino’s boyfriend called 911 after he discovered Paulino unresponsive with “obvious signs of trauma” in her car in Orange County, Florida, around 12:19 p.m. on May 10, a probable cause arrest affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime said. Paulino’s sister had contacted the boyfriend to say they hadn’t heard from her. After calling her several times to no avail, the boyfriend pinged her cellphone on the Find My iPhone app and learned she was in an area in northern Orange County.

The boyfriend went to the location where he found her body.