An illegal alien from Mexico who was recently released from jail in Kansas despite having a deportation detainer placed against him, has been arrested and charged with murdering four people in Kansas City, Kan. and is the prime suspect in another slaying in Missouri.
Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino, 40, was apprehended shortly after midnight Wednesday in Montgomery County, Mo., the Missouri State Highway Patrol announced.
The Mexican national had been on the run since late Monday, when he allegedly shot four men with an AK-47 in a house in Kansas City, Kan. One of the men was Serrano-Vitorino’s neighbor while the other three were reportedly visiting the residence.
The Kansas City Star reported that Serrano-Vitorino lived in the neighborhood with his wife and two small children. Neighbors said they knew of no beef between Serrano-Vitorino and his neighbor.
“This was a random act,” an aunt to two of the men told the Star. “They were innocents.”
The owner of the house where the men were found said he was allowed into the residence early Tuesday morning.
“It looked like he just stepped in the door and blew them away,” the owner, Steve Manthe, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Serrano-Vitorino is also suspected in the murder of 49-year-old Randy J. Nordman. He was found dead in his home near New Florence, Mo., which is where Missouri state troopers found Serrano-Vitorino’s abandoned Dodge Ram truck.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol said Serrano-Vitorino was arrested after a citizen called to report that a man had approached him with a gun. Troopers responded and found Serrano-Vitorino lying face down in a ditch near Interstate 70.
He is being held on $2 million bond for the Kansas City murders.
Serrano-Vitorino on the radar of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as recently as September, when the federal immigration agency placed a detainer against him following an arrest in Overland Park, Kan.
But a paperwork mix-up may have allowed him to remain free.
KSHB reported that ICE sent the detainer request to the Johnson County Sheriff’s office rather than to the Overland Park municipal court, where he was being held on a local charge.
“Further record checks indicate that ICE erroneously issued the detainer to Johnson County Sheriff’s office instead. ICE regrets the error,” ICE spokeswoman Gail Montenegro told KSHB.
Montenegro did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
Serrano-Vitorino had been previously deported in April 2004 after being ordered removed by a federal immigration judge.
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