2 escaped murder suspects arrested at US-Mexico border

By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ
November 6, 2019

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two murder suspects who escaped from a jail on California’s central coast eluded an intense manhunt, traveled hundreds of miles and crossed into Mexico but were arrested trying to walk back into the United States, authorities said Wednesday.

Jonathan Salazar, 20, and Santos Fonseca, 21, were arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials at a port of entry in San Ysidro — the nation’s largest border crossing — early Wednesday, said Monterey County Sheriff’s Office Capt. John Thornburg.

Thornburg said the two are in the custody of Monterey County officials and were on their way to a jail in Salinas, a farming city of about 160,000 people roughly 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of San Francisco.

Salazar and Fonseca escaped Sunday from the jail in Salinas after climbing through a hole they made in the ceiling of a bathroom, squeezing through a hollow wall and kicking open a hatch. Officials found their jail-issued jumpsuits outside the building. Inmates often wear their own clothes under the jumpsuits, Thornburg said.

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Thornburg said authorities received a tip that the pair, both born and raised in Salinas, had been spotted in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, around 400 miles (644 kilometers) south of Monterey County, and alerted federal officials.

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