Authorities said a man suspected of raping and killing an 87-year-old woman in Carlsbad in 2001 is in custody in Mexico and awaiting extradition to the United States.
Alejandro Fernandez allegedly raped and killed retired psychiatrist Gladys Conrad in her downtown Carlsbad By The Sea retirement village apartment in September 2001.
U.S. Marshals spokesman Omar Castillo told the newspaper that Mexican authorities arrested Fernandez in a "crime-ridden" area of Mexico City on Jan. 23. It was not immediately clear how Fernandez was identified as a suspect in the rape and murder case.
According to the Times, police had no leads until April 2004, when a national DNA database showed a sample of the Carlsbad suspect's DNA matched DNA from an unsolved attempted rape case in Los Angeles.
In the Los Angeles case, a man attacked an elderly woman who was able to escape, according to The North County Times.
