LANCASTER, Calif. — A man suspected of killing his wife and dumping her body in a Southern California forest earlier this month has been arrested in Peru and will be extradited back to the U.S. to face a murder charge, Los Angeles officials said Wednesday.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it was informed by the Consulate General of Peru that Jossimar Cabrera, 36, surrendered to authorities in the capital city of Lima.
Sheylla Cabrera’s body was found Aug. 16 at the bottom of an embankment in Angeles National Forest south of the LA County city of Lancaster, where the couple lived with their three young sons. The 33-year-old had been reported missing on Aug. 12.
Homicide detectives said they located surveillance footage of Jossimar Cabrera dragging a heavy object wrapped “in a large piece of material” from their apartment complex. When the victim’s body was discovered, it was wrapped in similar material, the sheriff’s department said.
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office last week filed a murder charge against Jossimar Cabrera. It wasn’t known Wednesday if he has an attorney.
The suspect had fled to Peru with the couple’s three sons. Peru’s foreign ministry said Aug. 16 on social media that it had repatriated the children back to Los Angeles via Mexico City to be reunited with their mother’s family.
“It will take several months in order to extradite Cabrera to the United States, but with a current order in place, he will be kept in Peruvian custody pending his extradition,” a sheriff’s department statement said.
The coroner’s office will determine Sheylla Cabrera’s cause of death.
