’30-plus years in the making:’ Man killed wife amid divorce, fled to El Salvador and started ‘an entirely new family,’ police say

Jose Cruz

On the left is Jose Cruz in 1991 when he allegedly killed his estranged wife 24-year-old Ana Jurado in Fairfax County, Virginia. Cruz fled to El Salvador where he remained for over three decades. He was arrested in 2022 while trying to enter Costa Rica from Nicaragua. He was extradited back to the U.S. in January 2024. On the right is the now-60-year-old Cruz’s mug shot. (Fairfax County Police Department)

After more than 30 years on the run in El Salvador, a man who authorities say murdered his estranged wife in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1991 has been arrested.

Police allege Jose L. Cruz killed 24-year-old Ana Jurado and then fled the country. The couple had been in the process of getting a divorce when Cruz allegedly killed her on April 30, 1991. Authorities in Fairfax County, a Washington, D.C., suburb, received a call after neighbors heard a woman screaming. Officers arrived and found Jurado suffering from upper body trauma. Paramedics pronounced her dead on the scene.

Witnesses told detectives they saw a man matching Cruz’s description running away from the scene. Cops quickly obtained an arrest warrant for Cruz for first-degree murder.

“This really isn’t a traditional cold case,” Fairfax County Police Department Chief Kevin Davis said at a press conference Monday. “It was solved virtually right away. He was on the lam. He was on the run. He avoided accountability for something he did nearly 33 years ago.”

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