COLORADO SPRINGS — Colorado Springs Police say they believe they have solved a nearly six-year-old murder.
Police said Wednesday they had obtained an arrest warrant for Martin Solis Mendiola, 39, who already is serving time for an unrelated felony at the Buena Vista Correctional Complex.
Mendiola is accused by police of sexually assaulting and stabbing to death Patricia Gonzalez-Arvizu on Jan. 26, 2004.
Previous news accounts described Gonzalez-Arvizu as a stay-at-home mom to her infant son. She was last seen by her husband and brother when they left for work early that morning.
Her husband came home about 4 p.m. that afternoon and found her body in the bedroom of their mobile home in west Colorado Springs. She had been stabbed multiple times and her throat slashed.
At the time, detectives collected DNA samples from the crime scene. The samples were entered in a statewide database. Recently, police say, the database matched the six-year-old sample to Solis Mendiola.
At the time of the killing, Solis Mendiola was employed by members of the victim’s family.
The arrest warrant comes at a critical time: Solis Mendiola was scheduled to be released from Buena Vista on Jan. 5. Instead, he now will be taken to the El Paso County Jail on the warrant, which authorizes his arrest on suspicion of first-degree murder and first-degree sexual assault.
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