'Most Wanted' tip leads to suspect in '94 slaying
DIXMOOR | Good samaritan gunned down

February 22, 2008
BY FRANK MAIN Crime Reporter/fmain@suntimes.com
A man suspected of killing a good samaritan 13 years ago in the south suburbs has been arrested in Memphis based on a tip from a Fox's "America's Most Wanted" viewer, officials say.

Jacer Medina allegedly fired a .38-caliber pistol six times into Ricky McDaniel, 31, in April 1994 in Dixmoor after an accomplice, Eduardo Flores, ran McDaniel's car off the road. McDaniel used his body to shield his fiance and her 7-year-old daughter from the bullets while the girl cried in the back seat, prosecutors said.

» Click to enlarge image Jacer Medina was arrested in Memphis, Tenn. for the 1994 shooting and murder of Ricky Lee McDaniel as a result of a tip from an "America's Most Wanted" viewer.
(Courtesy)

The murder motive: Flores was upset at McDaniel for trying to keep him from leaving the scene of an accident in Harvey months earlier, prosecutors said.

Flores, 38, of Guatemala, was arrested in 2004 in Los Angeles, where he was working as a parking attendant. Last year, Flores was convicted in Cook County of first-degree murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Police lost track of Medina -- a Latin Kings street gang member -- after he abandoned his car in Houston in 1994, authorities said.

Medina, 34, was arrested Tuesday in Memphis after a viewer of "America's Most Wanted" saw a story on Medina and e-mailed the TV show with a tip about his new identity under the alias Santiago Hernandez.

The FBI and Memphis police captured him without a struggle after watching his house for a few hours, according to the "America's Most Wanted" Web site.


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