A suspect arrested in Mexico by the FBI for the 2002 murder and rape of 39-year-old Sharon Van Gilder and the rapes of three other people was booked into Pierce County Jail on Thursday following his extradition.
Miguel Angel Urbano-Vazquez, 48, was arrested in March 2023 by FBI agents in Chimalhuacan, a city east of Mexico City. On Friday, Mike Herrington, special agent in charge of the Seattle Division of the FBI, announced Urbano-Vazquez had been extradited to the United States.
“This extradition should send a message to those who commit violence in our communities: you can run, but you can’t hide,” Herrington said in a written statement.
The murder of Van Gilder, a mother of two who grew up in Enumclaw, remained unsolved more than a decade until 2012 when DNA evidence in her death and the other rapes was linked to Urbano-Vazquez.
Urbano-Vazquez was charged in Pierce County Superior Court that year with aggravated first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree rape and second-degree rape. According to court documents, Urbano-Vazquez is accused of murdering Van Gilder in the course of, or to flee from, the crime of first- or second-degree rape.
A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf to each of those charges during his arraignment hearing Friday afternoon. After listening to prosecutors and the defense, Superior Court Commissioner Barbara McInvaille ordered that Urbano-Vazquez be held in custody without bail pending the outcome of a bail hearing Wednesday.
In 2018, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office requested assistance from the FBI in locating and apprehending Urbano-Vazquez. An investigation determined he had been deported to Mexico.
Herrington said Urbano-Vazquez would now face justice in Washington for his “horrific actions.”
Urbano-Vazquez walked into the courtroom unrestrained Friday in orange and pink jail clothes, then put on headphones to listen to a Spanish interpreter. He said little throughout the hearing except to confirm that court documents listing his name and date of birth were accurate.
Deputy prosecuting attorney Sarah Park said the state had filed a motion asking to hold Urbano-Vazquez in jail without the possibility of being released on bail. She said the defendant had limited criminal history in Washington, but he had been in Mexico for a lengthy period, and any criminal history in the country was unknown.
If convicted of aggravated first-degree murder, Urbano-Vazquez faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. According to court documents, Urbano-Vazquez would have been 25 years old at the time of Van Gilder’s death, making that punishment the only one available to a court if he is convicted.
“Given the allegations here, your honor, the four separate incidents, the four separate victims, the speed in which those four happened — this wasn’t drawn out over a lengthy period of time — there are significant safety concerns, public safety concerns,” Park said.
Urbano-Vazquez’s attorney from the Department of Assigned Counsel reserved argument on what amount of bail should be set until the defendant’s next court hearing.
Van Gilder was found dead March 21, 2002, shortly after midnight in the 15600 block of 74th Avenue East in Spanaway, according to court documents and prior news coverage. She was found unclothed, lying on the side of the road.
The woman had no marks on her body, but an autopsy revealed she had been strangled. Her fingerprints identified her as Van Gilder. Detectives believed she had been killed elsewhere.
An investigation determined she was last seen March 20, 2002, leaving the now-closed El Gallo de Oro tavern, 3201 Portland Ave. E., Tacoma. According to court documents and prior news reports, she left with Urbano-Vazquez and another man. Investigators submitted DNA from the murder to a Washington State Patrol crime lab but didn’t have samples from Urbano-Vazquez to compare.
Now-retired detective Sgt. Tim Kobel revived the cold case in 2012, finding Urbano-Vazquez was a suspect in two rapes after Van Gilder’s killing, according to prior news coverage and the Sheriff’s Office. Later that year, detectives connected Urbano-Vazquez to a fourth rape committed in October 2002.
In late April 2012, DNA from the first three crime scenes came back as matches, The News Tribune reported. Another male’s DNA was recovered from the second of the two rapes.
In 2019, the FBI told cold case detective sergeant Lynelle Anderson that Urbano-Vazquez had been found in Mexico, and she began the process of filing to extradite him to the United States. A Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said Friday that Anderson retired two years ago.
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