Northern California jury convicts man of murder in wife’s 1999 stabbing after he fled country
A Sutter County jury on Wednesday found a man guilty of murder in the brutal stabbing of his wife more than 24 years ago before he fled to Mexico with the couple’s two children, prosecutors said.
Francisco Arellano, 52, was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 32-year-old Blanca Duenas-Arellano, who was killed in a Yuba City home in a premeditated act, the Sutter County District Attorney’s Office announced in Facebook post.
Prosecutors said the woman’s estranged husband stabbed her 13 times in her abdomen, chest, arms and right leg, and a phone cord was wrapped around her neck four times. Arellano testified in court that he acted in self-defense, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
“There is no valid theory of self-defense in this case,” District Attorney Jennifer Dupré said in the Facebook post announcing Arrellano’s conviction. “There is no way that (Arellano) didn’t use more force than was reasonably necessary to defend himself against anyone.”
On July 26, 1999, the mother was found murdered in her apartment in the 600 block of Queens Avenue. Prosecutors said her then 27-year-old estranged husband, Arellano, emerged as the prime suspect in the murder case.
But Arellano fled to Mexico with the couple’s two children immediately following her murder, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
For the next 20 years, the woman’s stabbing death remained a cold case as the suspect’s whereabouts were unknown.
In 2019, Yuba City police detectives learned Arellano was living in Morales, Mexico. The Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office worked together, along with the U.S. Office of International Affairs, to extradite Arellano.
In June 2022, authorities with help from the U.S. Marshals Service, took Arellano into custody in Mexico. Arellano was formally extradited to the United States on Nov. 18, 2022, and Yuba City police returned him to face the murder charge in Sutter County.
Arellano has since remained in custody at the Sutter County Jail. He is scheduled to return April 26 for his sentencing hearing in Sutter Superior Court.
Prosecutors said Arellano faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
