An Arizona man was extradited back to the US to face charges for allegedly slaughtering an Iraqi refugee he was traveling with in 2017 after a good Samaritan recognized the suspect and contacted the victim’s family over GoFundMe.
Michael Anthony Arredondo, 34, was arrested on Oct. 15 for allegedly fatally stabbing 25-year-old Evin Paulos in June 2017 while the neighbors were traveling together.
Arredondo allegedly knifed Paulos more than 30 times after getting into a fight inside their vehicle, according to police.
Paulos was ditched on the side of the desert road and even tried to crawl to safety, but eventually succumbed to his injuries, his family wrote on a GoFundMe.
Authorities first located Paulos’ car abandoned at his ex-girlfriend’s house. The inside of the vehicle was caked with blood, and there was a kitchen knife in the backseat, according to court records obtained by the Arizona Republic.
Paulos’ body was eventually found 10 miles away from the Phoenix neighborhood where he and Arredondo lived, according to court documents. His family wrote on the GoFundMe that he was discovered “under a bush and was left to rot in the Arizona heat.”
The charity page created by the family didn’t garner much attention when it was first posted and quietly faded into obscurity as Paulos’ murder went unsolved.
A Mexican citizen, though, sought out the page and submitted a tip about the cold case to the family in September.
Paulos’ sister, Eviein, still isn’t entirely sure what inspired the stranger to reach out, or how they learned about the grisly murder.
“Was it a little angel that sent him through, to give us a little bit of relief?” Eviein said at a press conference, as reported by the Arizona Republic.
Still, Eviein was dubious and did what little due diligence she could to verify the tipster’s claims.
“I told [the tipster], ‘Please, I don’t know if this is a scam or not. Can you send me some kind of evidence, send me a picture?’ And it was him. He was just livin’ life for eight years,” she told Gray News.
It took one short month for the Phoenix Police Department, the US Marshals Service, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, and Mexican authorities to find Arredondo.
“We learned shortly after the incident occurred that [Arredondo] fled to California. He spent a short time there and eventually fled to Mexico, where he’s been staying for the last eight years,” Phoenix Police Department Detective Dominick Roestenberg said.
Roestenberg added that Arredondo allegedly confessed to killing Paulos after his arrest, but didn’t provide an explanation or motive.
The detective said at a press conference on Monday that Arredondo’s arrest is firm proof that “even with the passage of time, we’re still looking for you, we’re still hunting you down.”
Arredondo faces a second-degree murder charge that was secured in a grand jury indictment already handed down to him. He is held on a $750,000 bond.
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