By Mary Jordan
The Washington Post
MEXICO CITY – Fugitive Christian Longo, who was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, was captured Sunday night in a beach town near Cancun, ending an international manhunt that began when the bodies of Longo’s wife and three small children were found floating in the cold waters of the Pacific off Oregon.
Longo, 27, did not resist when Mexican police accompanied by FBI agents detained him in Tulum, a resort famous for its ancient ruins and beaches. The FBI said Monday that Longo was immediately flown to the United States, where he faces charges in a crime that shook Oregon just before Christmas.
Between Dec. 19 and Dec. 27, the bodies of Mary Jane Longo, 34, and the couple’s children – ages 2, 3 and 4 – were found in the shallow coastal waters near Waldport and Newport. The family had recently moved to the central Oregon coast, leaving behind a string of debt in Ohio and Michigan.
People in the small towns where the bodies washed up held prayer and church services for the dead family members they had never met, as the FBI launched a nationwide manhunt for the missing father. On Saturday night, Longo’s case was aired on the popular television show, “America’s Most Wanted.”
A break in the case came when Longo allegedly used a stolen credit card to purchase a plane ticket from San Francisco to Cancun on Dec. 27. A Canadian woman who had been vacationing in Cancun called the FBI and said she believed Longo was in her Cancun hostel, where a robbery had occurred, but by then he had moved on.
The FBI printed photos and posters of Longo, a 6-foot tall, boyish-looking man with reddish blond hair, and distributed them with the help of Mexican police in the pristine beach areas near Cancun.
The poster, printed in Spanish, noted that Longo was wanted for killing his children. Sunday, a person in Tulum who saw Longo’s poster in a phone booth called the FBI in Mexico City. Within hours of that call, Longo was in custody, caught apparently as he was on the move again, the FBI said.
Last year, about 100 fugitives wanted in the United States were caught in Mexico, according to Raul Salinas, a spokesman for the FBI office in Mexico City. For decades, escaping south of the border has been a favorite route for American criminals. But as cooperation between U.S. and Mexican law enforcement authorities has increased during the 13 months President Vicente Fox has been in office, the number of fugitives captured last year increased about three-fold over the number in 2000.
Jesus Mena Paullado, a state police officer in the area where Longo was arrested, said the FBI found him in an area of beach cabanas and huts favored by backpackers who can sleep on a hammock for $10 a night. He had been sharing a hut with a person who apparently did not know Longo was a fugitive, law enforcement officers said.
U.S. law enforcement officers cannot make arrests on Mexican soil and are forbidden to carry guns here, so a team of Mexican officers detained Longo.
Even though there are many tourists in the beach area, the tall, blue-eyed American who spoke Spanish stuck out, police said.
“It’s phenomenal,” said Salinas, talking about the quick turnaround in this case. “He was living the good life and that just came to a quick halt.”
Longo was in a Houston, Texas, jail Monday night, as U.S. authorities continued to try to piece together details of how, why and where the murder of his wife, and children – Zachary, Sadie Ann and Madison – occurred.
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