- US officials have arrested a California man wanted in Mexico for femicide, according to a criminal complaint.
- Bryant Rivera, 30, is "considered a serial killer" and is accused of killing three sex workers.
US officials arrested a California man suspected in the slayings of three Mexican sex workers, and are seeking to extradite him back to Mexico, according to a criminal complaint unsealed this week.
Bryant Rivera, 30, is "considered a serial killer," according to a statement from Baja California Attorney General Ricardo Iván Carpio Sánchez. Carpio said Rivera is wanted for three counts of femicide, a charge that in Mexico refers to the murder of women on the basis of their sex.
The criminal complaint against Rivera said he was seen on surveillance footage entering a hotel room in Tijuana with a sex worker named Ángela Carolina Acosta Flores at 10:13 p.m. on January 24, 2022. Rivera was then seen leaving the room alone at 11:49 p.m., and then entering the San Ysidro port of entry and crossing back into the United States just 13 minutes after leaving the hotel room.
Still images included in the criminal complaint showed Rivera riding the elevator with Flores, and later passing through a US customs booth.
Hotel staff discovered Flores' body in the hotel room at 11:35 a.m. on January 25, 2022. Surveillance footage showed that no other entries or exits took place between Rivera leaving and hotel staff arriving at the room.
The criminal complaint said medical experts later concluded that Flores died "due to anoxemia caused by strangulation."
US Marshals then located Rivera within the US, at his home in Downey, California.
The criminal complaint did not include details of the two other killings Rivera is suspected of, but Mexican authorities have said they bore striking similarities to the killing of Flores.
Carpio told Mexican reporters that investigators are examining other homicides with similar characteristics to the three that Rivera is suspected of, in an effort to determine whether even more homicides are linked to him.
In a statement, Carpio said he had met with officials from the US's Department of Justice, the FBI, and the US Marshals Service, with "highly positive results."
He said Rivera is expected to be extradited back to Mexico an "will now face justice in Baja California."