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A jury in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, accused Salvadoran Jose Lazaro Cruz this Monday after being extradited from Central America earlier this year on a charge of second-degree murder for the 1991 death of his wife, Ana Jurado.
Cruz, 60, was initially charged with the crime shortly after his wife, who was 24 at the time, was stabbed, but he had fled the United States by then.
In July 2022, Cruz was detained while attempting to enter Costa Rica and was extradited to the United States in January.
In April 1991, police responded to reports of a stabbing in West Falls Church, Virginia, about 20 miles west of Washington, where they found Jurado in the street with a stab wound to her torso.
Witnesses at the scene reported hearing a scream and seeing a man who matched Cruz’s description fleeing the scene.
Cruz and Jurado were in the process of getting a divorce, according to the county’s Deputy Chief of Police Investigations, Eli Cori.
Jurado had a 4-year-old son who lived with relatives in El Salvador, and two daughters who lived with her in the United States.
In 1999, Fairfax County Police sent agents to El Salvador in an attempt to locate Cruz and obtained information about his whereabouts, but at that time there was no extradition treaty between the two countries, and Cruz was not arrested.
