COTTONWOOD, Ariz. (AP) – A television show that featured the nearly two-decade-old killing of an Arizona teenager and her unborn baby helped lead to the arrest of her ex-boyfriend, police said Wednesday.
Cecilio Cruz was taken into custody early Tuesday in Tucson on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter. Police in the city of Cottonwood, about 100 miles north of Phoenix, said Cruz fatally shot 17-year-old Marisol Gonzalez in the face on March 25, 1997.
Cottonwood police Sgt. Tod Moore said Cruz, 34, had long been suspected in Gonzalez’s death. The two dated in high school, and she found out that she was pregnant with his child after they broke up. Her body was found in an alley near her Cottonwood home the same day she was scheduled to be induced to deliver the baby boy she named Andrew, Moore said.
Moore took a keen interest in the case – the only cold case within the department. A promotion freed him up in 2008 to scour boxes of material from the case, looking for anything that police could have missed. He later responded to a request from TNT’s “Cold Justice” for ideas on cold cases to feature on the show. The episode “First Love” aired in February.
Moore said an investigative team from the show came to Cottonwood last October and helped review dozens of leads and conduct interviews so that police could present the case to a Yavapai County grand jury. Cruz was indicted last week.