Sunday, December 15, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Lack of extradition treaty frustrates Las Vegas family

Suspect in son's killing fled to El Salvador before being captured in New York

Las Vegan Ron Cornell stands next to the car hood that is painted with the image of his slain son, Joey. REVIEW-JOURNAL FILE PHOTO

The murder of a relative is always traumatic. But that pain is compounded when the suspect flees to a country that will not extradite him.

"I thought about hiring someone to go down there and take care of him," Las Vegan Ron Cornell said of the man accused of killing his 16-year-old son, Joey. "That crossed my mind several times."

On July 16, 1998, Joey Cornell arrived with two of his friends at his mother's home near Charleston and Lamb boulevards.

As they left a car, a van pulled alongside the vehicle. Shots were fired, and Cornell was killed instantly. His buddies survived.

Police within hours identified Gonzalo Villalobos, then 37, as the suspect.

Detectives said he was angered by an ongoing dispute that started when his son was arrested on allegations that he seduced a juvenile in Cornell's family.

Police soon learned Villalobos had slipped across the Mexican border and was hiding in Mexico and El Salvador.

At one point, detectives even discovered exactly where he was living in El Salvador, but were powerless because there is no extradition cooperation between that country and the United States.

"We knew he was living his life as he wanted with his family, while we weren't, while my son was gone," Ron Cornell said.

But in the summer of 2000, authorities got a break when the case was featured on "America's Most Wanted."

Within hours, FBI agents arrested Villalobos in Great Neck, N.Y., where he had been working as a cook.

He was returned to Las Vegas and is scheduled to go to trial next month on a murder charge.

"He never would've faced justice if he would've stayed down there," Ron Cornell said. "He would've gotten away with killing my son."