Wednesday 31 August 2022 02:28 AM Bodybuilding ex-Marine, 36, on US Marshals' most wanted list said he was 'Jack ... trends now
A former Marine wanted for the murder of his girlfriend spent six years on the run in Latin America and was living in El Salvador under the alias 'Jack Donovan', it emerged on Tuesday.
Raymond 'RJ' McLeod, 36, was found on Monday teaching English in the 71,000-inhabitant city of Sonsonate, 20 miles inland from the Pacific coast.
Considered so dangerous he was set the highest-ever bounty by U.S. Marshals, he was tracked down after a woman saw a Univision Spanish-language special about his case, and recognized him as teaching in the town.
McLeod told people he was Canadian, and used the fake name, Univision reported. He was arrested on Monday in front of his class full of students at Direct English school in Sonsonate.
An administrator at another nearby school said it was common that the identities of staff were unverified.
'The hire teachers and don't ask for identification,' the administrator told DailyMail.com.
'They don't even verify if they are licensed to teach. A lot of the teachers there have tattoos.'
Raymond 'RJ' McLeod is pictured on Monday in El Salvador, after he was arrested following six years on the run
McLeod is seen on Monday being led away by police in El Salvador
Krystal Mitchell, 30, was killed in a San Diego apartment in June 2016
Univision reported that he was paid $1,000 a month.
The Marshals in April 2021 added him to their list of 15 'Most Wanted', and offered a reward of $50,000 for information leading to his arrest - double the usual amount.
McLeod was described as armed, dangerous and a heavy drinker
He was sought for the June 2016 murder of his new girlfriend Krystal Mitchell, 30, in an apartment they were staying in while visiting his friends in San Diego.
Mitchell's mother, Josephine Funes Wentzel, a retired police detective, was instrumental in tracking down McLeod said the San Diego district attorney, Summer Stephan.
'This defendant's brazen attempt to evade justice is over and the work to hold him accountable in a court of law for the murder of Krystal Mitchell can now begin,' said Stephan.
'Huge credit goes to the victim's mother who never gave up searching for her daughter's killer and worked closely with our office and other law enforcement to make this arrest possible.'
Wentzel, who traveled across Latin America - at one point being threatened by a knife on the Guatemalan border, at another point being savagely attacked by a wild dog - said McLeod was spotted by a woman in El Salvador.
