Philadelphia Police joined agents from the FBI to announce the arrest of the city’s suspected no pants rapist who was recently returned from Mexico after more than a four-year manhunt.
Authorities spoke Tuesday morning about the arrest and extradition of Alberto Issac Navarrete Suarez, AKA Dario Gomez Lopez.
Suarez escaped to his native Mexico in August 2010 after being accused of choking and raping a 22-year-old woman waiting for the bus at 8th and Race streets — that’s right by Philadelphia Police headquarters.
Police said that the rape and choking was so violent they had no doubt Suarez, now 37, would have killed the woman if a passer-by hadn’t heard her screams.
Suarez ran away from the crime scene in his underwear when 911 calls by witnesses led to police sirens. The pants he left behind has a fake ID in the pocket, which led authorities to Suarez’ true identity.
Philadelphia detectives, with help from the FBI, had Suarez detained in Mexico City in 2012 and, after arduous legal proceedings, extradited to Philadelphia late Monday. A Philadelphia Police officer along with an FBI agent went to Mexico to bring Suarez back to America to face charges.
The arrest has reopened those wounds, while ending the risk that the rapist would harm anyone else, authorities said.
"While it seems like a long time ... in Mexico, the judicial process works much, much slower, especially when he's a (Mexican) national," FBI Special Agent in Charge Edward J. Hanko said at a news conference Tuesday.
DNA collected at the scene was run through a national database and appears to match a sample from a March 2010 rape in Pittsburgh, according to Lt. Anthony McFadden of the Philadelphia special victims unit.
Suarez was expected to be charged Tuesday with rape, attempted murder and aggravated assault in the Philadelphia case. Charges in Pittsburgh could follow. He does not yet have a lawyer.
For the Philadelphia victim, the arrest was "bittersweet," McFadden said.
"She had four years of trying to get some closure, some relief," he said.
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Suarez, also known as Dario Gomez Lopez, worked odd jobs and had a last known address on the 2600 block of S. 7th Street in Philadelphia, police said.
