Suspect in 2012 murder of wife, unborn child jailed in Phoenix after extradition
Oct 1, 2021, 11:30 AM | Updated: 11:41 am

Gilbert Villareal (Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Photo)
(Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Photo)
PHOENIX – A man suspected of killing his wife and her unborn child nine years ago is in a Phoenix jail after being extradited from Mexico, authorities said Thursday.
Gilbert “Yogi” Villareal, 34, was taken into custody by Phoenix police and booked into Maricopa County Jail after being returned to the U.S. on Thursday afternoon, the U.S. Marshals Service said in a press release.
He is accused of stabbing his pregnant wife, 22-year-old Shelia Lomes, multiple times at her apartment complex near 32nd Avenue and Beardsley Road on the night of March 26, 2012.
Police identified Villareal as the suspect and determined that he’d fled to Tijuana, Mexico.
U.S. Marshals worked with Mexican authorities to track Villareal until he was arrested in Cancun for stabbing a woman in the neck in December 2016, according to the release.
He served three years in a Mexican prison for attempted homicide, and then his custody was transferred to Interpol, an international police agency, before his eventual extradition.
“The U.S. Marshals Service in Arizona is actively searching for hundreds of violent fugitives who are wanted in the United States and are circumventing prosecution by fleeing to Mexico,” David Gonzales, U.S. Marshal for the District of Arizona, said in the release.
“The arrest of Gilbert Villareal in Cancun, Mexico, was the result of the collaboration between the Arizona U.S. Marshals Service, Phoenix Police Department, Interpol, and our Mexican law enforcement partners.”