Search for suspect finally ends
Tara Cleveland would have turned 40 next week.
The model, Miss Nevada USA runner-up and UNLV student was on her way to a bright future when she was gunned down nearly 15 years ago by two car thieves.
North Las Vegas police knew who their suspects were: two teenagers who after the slaying fled to Mexico and avoided extradition to the United States for years.
One of them, Joseph Villezcas, was turned over by Mexican authorities in 2006 and was convicted of second-degree murder. But the other suspect remained at large, leaving Cleveland's case open.
On Thursday the search for the second suspect came to a close.
Police in Whiteville, Tenn., pulled over 33-year-old Fernando Garcia Valenzuela and arrested him on three felony drug charges. When they began processing him, they discovered through a federal database that he was wanted in the North Las Vegas slaying.
Cleveland's killing was handled by more than 100 investigators over the years. Many have retired or moved on. The detective who took ownership of her case for the past nine years, Mark Koch, was set to retire in four weeks.
"When he called me today, I answered the phone and he said, 'Tim, this is Mark. This is one of the happiest days of my career,' " Sgt. Tim Bedwell said. "I knew exactly what he was going to tell me, just from hearing his voice."
Koch said he called Cleveland's brother and went to see Cleveland's mother at her workplace to give her the news in person.
"As you can imagine, it was very emotional," Koch said.
Cleveland's sister, 42-year-old Gayve Hill, said the news was almost bittersweet. Though she was happy he was caught, it brought back painful memories.
"We're on a road to healing," she said. "It's still really hard for my mother. I don't think she'll ever get over it. She's just taking it one day at a time."
A straight-A student, her sister was planning on becoming a lawyer, Hill said.
"She was on her way to something really big," she said.
The events leading up to Cleveland's high-profile slaying began in the early morning hours of Dec. 17, 1994, when the 25-year-old woman was involved in a traffic accident with Villezcas at Las Vegas Boulevard and Pecos Road.
The then-17-year-old Villezcas left the scene. Cleveland followed in her 1988 Chevrolet Camaro until he pulled over in a residential neighborhood.
She confronted them and was shot in the face with a double-barreled shotgun. Police found her dead on the sidewalk soon after. Her car was stolen by Villezcas and Valenzuela and found broken down, according to police.
For years police and public officials pleaded with the Mexican government to turn over the two men. Mexico is not bound by treaty to deliver its nationals to U.S. law enforcement officials.
But Villezcas was not a Mexican national, officials there determined, and he was turned over to the FBI three years ago. He is serving a 35-year sentence in the Southern Desert Correctional Center in Indian Springs.
Valenzuela is a Mexican national, and Koch and other detectives made numerous trips to the country to follow up on leads and talk to authorities there about the case.
"It was frustrating for the officers involved, specifically for this detective, because they knew where their suspects were, at times knew exactly where they were, (and) couldn't get their hands on them," Bedwell said.
Valenzuela had made several trips in and out of the United States in the years after the killing. He was arrested in California in 1998 and 1999, but authorities never connected him to the warrant for his arrest in Clark County, possibly because he used a fake identity or date of birth.
Koch has not determined what Valenzuela was doing in Tennessee. Valenzuela has not had a chance to decide whether he will waive extradition to Nevada.
Despite the longevity of the case, Koch is thrilled that Valenzuela has been caught.
"Sometimes cases play out the way you want, and sometimes they don't," he said.
"It was just a great break."
Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.
