CHICAGO – The arrest of a man at a routine sobriety checkpoint this week in California turned out to be anything but ordinary after police discovered he was wanted in a nearly 30-year-old murder in Chicago.
Francisco Sandoval, who had been living under the name Leonel Sanchez Valencia in El Monte, Calif., was arrested Monday on suspicion of driving under the influence and when police ran his fingerprints, they found an arrest warrant.
“Whenever you stop somebody, you never know what you’re going to get,” said El Monte Police Officer Eduardo Nafarrate. “You can lie to the cops about your name, but your fingerprints will always tell the truth.”
Sandoval is suspected of killing Armando Ruiz, 20, in Chicago on Sept. 6, 1978, because he believed Ruiz had run into him with a car during a 1977 fight in which Sandoval suffered a broken hip, authorities said.
Sandoval shot Ruiz with a .45-caliber automatic pistol and wounded Ruiz’s cousin, Elizabeth Banda, 18, who was with him, police said. Sandoval fled to California, authorities said.
He remained at large until 1988 when he was arrested by Monterey Park, Calif., police for selling candy bars in front of a drugstore without a license. Police checked his background and found the 1978 murder warrant.
Sandoval was extradited to Chicago, indicted in the Ruiz murder and released on bail, authorities said. He showed up for months at scheduled court dates until one day that fall he didn’t, said Cook County, Ill., sheriff’s spokeswoman Penny Mateck. A warrant was issued for his arrest, she said.
Sandoval was at large for 17 years until his arrest this week.
At a hearing Thursday in California, Sandoval waived extradition and remained in the Los Angeles County Jail, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Cook County sheriff’s officials are expected to bring him back to Illinois where he is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery and armed violence, authorities said.
As for the DUI charge, Sandoval pleaded guilty Tuesday and was sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation and fined $390, Gibbons said.
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