http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stori ... 10243.html

Today: June 07, 2006 at 16:1:51 PDT

Suspect arrested in 1994 slaying of model in North Las Vegas
By KEN RITTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) - A man wanted in the 1994 shotgun slaying of a one-time Miss Nevada beauty pageant competitor has been arrested at the Mexican border, police said Wednesday.

Joseph Villezcas, 28, had been living as a Mexican citizen under an assumed name in Hermosillo, a town in Sonora, said Officer Tim Bedwell, North Las Vegas police spokesman.

Villezcas fled to Mexico shortly after the slaying of 25-year-old Tara Cleveland, who was shot to death on her way home from work, Bedwell said.

Mexican authorities turned Villezcas over to a joint FBI-North Las Vegas police fugitive apprehension team late Tuesday at the border town of Nogales, Ariz., he said. Villezcas was being held in the a Santa Cruz County, Ariz., jail pending extradition to Nevada.

Bedwell called the arrest the result of dogged investigation and pressure on the Mexican government to recognize that Villezcas was a U.S. citizen.

"Because Mexican authorities determined he was an American citizen, they extradited him on the active murder warrant," Bedwell said.

Villezcas and another man, Fernando Garcia Valenzuela, now 30, had been sought in a warrant issued in Clark County in December 1996. Police believe Valenzuela, a Mexican citizen, is living in Mexico.

Cleveland was shot in the face Dec. 17, 1994, when she followed a car and confronted a driver after his vehicle struck hers, according to police.

Cleveland, who had worked as a model and was runner-up in the 1994 Miss Nevada USA pageant, was found dead in front of a home in North Las Vegas. Her car was found near a highway in Searchlight, about 50 miles south of Las Vegas.

"I've been waiting for such a long time," said Cleveland's mother, Vicki Cleveland, 57, who broke into tears when reached by telephone at her Veterans Administration job in Las Vegas. "I'm sad for what happened to my child, but I'm glad that I can probably get her some kind of justice."

Vicki Cleveland said her daughter, one of eight children, was attending the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and competed in the beauty pageant with hopes of winning a scholarship.

"She was a straight-A student," the mother said. "She wanted to practice entertainment law as an attorney. She could have made a great contribution to this world."

Bedwell said police believe Villezcas and Valenzuela took Cleveland's car and drove toward Mexico. The slaying had been featured on the crime show "America's Most Wanted."