Jail escapee Marin-Sotelo, accused in murder of Wake Co. deputy, has been caught in Mexico, FBI says
FARMVILLE, Va. (WTVD) -- Alder Marin-Sotelo, who escaped from a Virginia jail where he was being held on charges connecting to the killing of a Wake County deputy, has been captured four days after his brazen jailbreak.
The FBI said Marin-Sotelo was taken into custody by Mexican authorities early Thursday afternoon in the state of Guerrero, located south of Mexico City on the country's Pacific Coast. That's about 2,400 miles away from the Virginia jail and roughly a 44-hour drive.
The agency is still investigating to figure out his exact movements since the moment he escaped from the Piedmont Regional Jail on April 30.
The FBI said the getaway car that Marin-Sotelo drove has not yet been found. The FBI is asking anyone who sees the red Ford Mustang with tips or information to contact (800) CALL-FBI or tips.fbi.gov. The car had a temporary North Carolina license tag.
WATCH: Wake County Sheriff Willie Rowe discusses escapee's capture
On Thursday evening, Wake County Sheriff Willie Rowe issued a statement saying, "The arrest of Alder Alfonso Marin-Sotelo allows every employee of the Wake County Sheriff's Office to breathe easier tonight. We know the greater community can share this sense of relief with us. We want to thank the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Marshals Service, the State Bureau of Investigation, the Wake County District Attorney's Office, the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, the US Attorney's Office for the Middle District of North Carolina, and every law enforcement officer for working tirelessly to search for and arrest Marin-Sotelo.
"Our Sheriff's Deputies have worked tirelessly to ensure every resource we have has been used, and we thank them for their hard work. The escape and search opened old wounds for our Office and Deputy Ned Byrd's family. We have been in contact with his family and are offering support in any way we can.
"We want to thank the community for keeping watch and our media partners for keeping his name and picture in the news."
Rowe also said that state and federal authorities will begin the process of working with the Mexican government to have Marin-Sotelo extradited back to the United States.
"As soon as the extradition stuff goes through, he'll be back here for prosecution," he said. "We supported state and federal agencies, even the local agencies in Virginia with data they needed, the information and they supported family."
The US Marshals Service reported hundreds of law enforcement officials had been engaged in this manhunt over the last four days.
The FBI and US Marshals had been offering a combined $70,000 reward for information leading to Marin-Sotelo's capture and conviction. Those agencies declined to say at this time what efforts it took to locate and capture Marin-Sotelo.
Piedmont Regional Jail Authority Board, which is in charge of the jail where Marin-Sotelo escaped, said Thursday that the jail does have multiple faulty security systems in multiple areas of the jail. However, the board said Marin-Sotelo was not in any of those areas and therefore was not aided in his escape by those security problems at the jail.
Still, the board said there is an internal investigation underway and that any and all personnel or facility problems will be remedied immediately.
So many questions remain about how Marin-Sotelo was able to get outside the jail.
"Right now anything's really possible," US Marshals Service Chief Deputy Larry Moltzan said. "We're still trying to figure out the ins and outs and all of the details."
Moltzan said he would not be surprised if more arrests were made in connection to the escape.
An attorney who specializes in extradition law told ABC11 it's difficult to say how long it will take for Marin-Sotelo to return to the United States. He said each case is different, but generally speaking, getting a prisoner from Mexico to the U.S. can take at least a month due to extradition laws.
What we know about the escape
Alder Marin-Sotelo, one of two brothers charged with the murder of Wake County Deputy Ned Byrd, escaped from the Farmville, Virginia, jail around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, April 30.
He reportedly got out of his confinement, jumped a jail fence and drove off in a red Ford Mustang which has been left in a parking lot near the jail for him to use to escape. His sister is in custody on charges she aided his escape by helping pay for and arrange for the Mustang to be parked and ready for Marin-Sotelo to use.
Another man, Bruce Callahan, 44, also escaped from the same jail around 20 hours after Marin-Sotelo.
"They somehow, we think, were potentially able to manipulate some locks, crawled through an opening that led them out into the rec yard area. And then from there, they scaled two fences to get away from the jail," Moltzan said. "I think it's like it's fair to reason that they may have talked about (the escape), given that it was so similar. But they did not escape at the same time and didn't necessarily help each other in that way."
Callahan was behind bars on drug charges out of eastern North Carolina, stemming from an arrest in September 2021. He was transferred from the Robeson County Jail to the Virginia jail in September 2022.
