Menu
FBI to put Orozco on Top Ten Most Wanted list
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is expected to place Jorge Alberto Lopez Orozco on its list of Ten Most Wanted fugitives some time next week the Mountain Home News has learned.
The FBI has not confirmed that but multiple sources within local law enforcement have indicated the FBI has completed the paperwork and will hold a press conference in Boise next week announcing Orozco's elevation to the list.
Orozco, who also has gone by the name of Raul Solorio in the past, is wanted in connection with the murder of his girlfriend, Rebecca Ramirez, 29, and two of her seven children, Miguel, 2, and Ricardo, 4. Their charred and bullet-riddled bodies were found in a burned out car south of Mountain Home on Aug. 11, 2002. They were last seen alive with Orozco on July 30 and authorities believe they were killed on Aug. 1.
Orozco, who was married at the time, is believed to have fled the area after the killings, initially to southern California, where he has relatives, and possibly to Mexico, although there have been repeated reports that he has been seen in the United States, even in Elmore County, since that time.
Currently, there is a $5,000 reward for information leading to his arrest, but if placed on the FBI's top ten list that reward will almost certainly be increased to at least $50,000, which appears to be the minimum for fugitives on the list. Four persons on the list have rewards of $1 million or more, including Osama bin Laden, who leads the top 10 list, and whose reward is pegged at $25 million.
By placing Orozco on the Ten Most Wanted list the FBI will significantly increase the "profile" in the search for Orozco. His wanted poster will go up in all post offices around the country, he will be featured on the FBI's website, and usually the crime show "America's Most Wanted" does a feature on new additions to the list.
In order to improve the chances that Mexican authorities would attempt to find and apprehend Orozco and return him to face charges in the United States, Elmore County Prosecutor Aaron Bazzoli has written to Mexican authorities agreeing to not seek the death penalty or life imprisonment for Orozco if he is caught there. Mexico will not extradite anyone facing those penalties, although it has indicated it is willing to try him in Mexico on the charges. Bazzoli wants him returned to the United States to face charges here if he is caught in Mexico.
At the same time, Bazzoli has indicated in the past, that offer is "off the table" and Orozco could still face a possible death penalty case if he is arrested in the United States and returned to Elmore County.
Excluding two unsolved murders that go back several decades, the Orozco/Ramirez case is the oldest pending murder case currently in the active files of Elmore County law enforcement.
The murder of Ramirez and her children were the first of what has been a string of murders that have occurred in Elmore County in the last two-and-a-half years.
Last November, Larry Severson was convicted on murdering his wife, by poisoning or suffocating her in February of 2003, and in January Albert Ciccone was convicted of killing his wife by running her over with his car on a rural road in October of 2003.
Neither man faces the death penalty but could be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison for their crimes.
Severson is scheduled to be sentenced on March 21. Ciccone also is scheduled to be sentenced on that date but it is likely that sentencing date will be changed this week to some later time this year.
In addition to those murder cases, Teresa Garcia, 17, was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds outside her aunt and uncle's home north of Mountain Home in June of 2004. She apparently had been selected at random and killed by a serial killer driving through the area, Richard Wilson, 39, of Walla Walla, Wash., a Washington prison parolee, who later died by his own hand after being cornered by authorities in Utah that same week.
Hers was the only case that had occurred since 2002 that did not involve some form of apparent domestic violence.
Bazzoli is now preparing another homicide case against John Valen, who is alleged to have killed his wife at their home Saturday.