Days before Christmas, family members discovered the bodies of Alicia Montejano and her 19-year-old son Reuel Huerta in their Stockton apartment. The two had been beaten to death, and authorities announced that Montejano’s boyfriend, 38-year-old Julio Caesar Valdez, was their suspect.
After a weeks-long manhunt, Valdez was arrested Tuesday in Rosarito, Mexico and will be extradited to San Joaquin County in connection with the killings, Stockton police said in a release.
Huerta and his mother, Montejano, 43, were found in their apartment on Dec. 23. Montejano’s daughter, Marissa Vigil, made the gruesome discovery, Sacramento news station KXTV reported.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Vigil told the news station. “It felt like I was dying at the time. I couldn’t breathe, and I still couldn’t get the pictures out of my head.”
“They both did not deserve this,” Reuel’s father, Raul Huerta said. “We need justice. He had the biggest heart. He would not hurt nobody.”
Family members described Huerta as a bright and quiet teenager and Montejano as someone who could make others smile.
Authorities said Huerta had lacerations on his body, which appeared to be the cause of death, but there were no gunshot wounds or other obvious signs of injury found on his mother’s body. No other details were released.
