A man charged with killing a couple and their sleeping toddler in San Diego more than two decades ago has been arrested after he was extradited from Mexico, authorities announced Thursday.
Sergio Lopez Contreras, 44, was extradited on Wednesday and remained jailed without bail pending his arraignment on three counts of first-degree murder, authorities said.
Michael Plummer, 20, his girlfriend Adah Pearson, 18, and Plummer’s 21-month-old nephew Julio Rangel, were shot to death in a Normal Heights apartment on Sept. 4, 2000.
The child’s parents were home during the shooting but weren’t wounded, police said.
Police at the time said it appeared that the shooting started when Plummer went to an apartment next door to buy some drugs and returned to his own unit without paying for them, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
The dealer followed and demanded money, then opened fire with a rifle from outside the door, spraying 14 shots into the living room, police said.
Contreras was believed to have fled to Tijuana after the killings. Police didn’t immediately say when he was arrested.
Contreras was charged in 2007 with three counts of murder with special-circumstance allegations that the killings were committed with a rifle and while lying in wait.
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It wasn’t immediately known whether he had an attorney to speak on his behalf.