RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) – A decade-long social media campaign by the vigilant mother of a fatal car-to-car shooting victim helped lead to the arrest of the remaining suspect in the 2006 killing, California authorities said Wednesday.
William Sotelo is behind bars in the city of Riverside after being arrested Friday in central Mexico, police said. The 28-year-old gang member is accused of driving the car from which bullets were fired that killed Crystal Theobald on Feb. 24, 2006.
In the weeks following the killing, Theobald’s mother, Belinda Lane, took to social media, posting frequently to seek information on Sotelo’s whereabouts, police Lt. Christian Dinco told The Associated Press.
She set up fake MySpace pages and eventually began communicating with Sotelo, which led to detectives bringing him in for a voluntary interview in 2006.
Sotelo provided information that moved along the investigation, but police didn’t have enough evidence to detain him at the time, Dinco said. He disappeared almost immediately.