Homicide suspect captured

Published 10:03 am Wednesday, May 30, 2018

MICANOPY, Fla. — A Suwannee County homicide suspect was captured by the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday morning.

According to Suwannee County Sheriff Sam St. John, 35-year-old Ricardo Fuentes was tracked down by authorities around 9:45 a.m. Wednesday. The suspect may have been injured by one of the search dogs while being captured, St. John said.

Fuentes, also known as Ruben Gutierrez and Ruben Portillo Gutierrez, was supposed to meet with authorities Tuesday morning in regards to the disappearance of his 32-year-old girlfriend Delia Cruz.

Cruz was reported missing Monday morning and Fuentes had said she walked away from their residence in the 22000 block of 41st Road in Ranchettes around 7 p.m. Sunday, wearing a white and pink shirt and blue jeans.

But when authorities arrived Tuesday morning for further questioning of Fuentes about Cruz, he had left.

St. John said Fuentes had met his sister in Gainesville and the sister told the SCSO that he had confessed to her that he had killed Cruz and buried her body.

The SCSO with the help of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Mobile Crime Lab found a body believed to be Cruz Tuesday evening in a shallow grave near the residence.

The body was sent to the Medical Examiner’s office in Tallahassee for positive identification and to determine the cause of death.

Fuentes, though, had eluded authorities from the Alachua and Marion County sheriff’s offices as well as Florida Highway Patrol, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Department of Corrections in the Micanopy area until Wednesday morning.

Fuentes, who is 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds, is listed as a sexual offender according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, stemming from a 2004 sexual battery conviction in Marion County. He was released from prison in December 2017 after serving 10 years for attempted murder.