(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-04-11 14:38

RALEIGH, N.C. - A Marine wanted in the brutal slaying of a pregnant colleague who had accused him of rape was arrested Thursday night in Mexico after a three-month international manhunt, authorities said.

Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean, left, is presented by police in Morelia, Mexico, Thursday, April 10, 2008. Laurean, who was wanted in the brutal slaying of a pregnant fellow Marine at Camp Lejeune who had accused him of rape, was arrested Thursday night in Mexico after a three-month international manhunt, authorities said. [Agencies]

FBI agents and Mexican authorities arrested Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean around 7 p.m. EDT. He is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, whose burned remains were found in January in the backyard of his home near Camp Lejeune.

"You know my name. You know who I am," Laurean told The Associated Press while being held at the Michoacan state Attorney General's Office in Morelia, the state capital.

Asked if he wanted to say anything, Laurean simply said, "Proof," but wouldn't explain.

Laurean appeared slightly disoriented. Asked what he would do next, he replied: "Do I have a choice? ... I don't know."

Magdalena Guzman, a spokeswoman for the Michoacan, Mexico, state prosecutors office, said police carrying out an anti-kidnapping operation stopped Laurean as he wandered on a street in the rural township of Tacambaro, Michoacan, because they thought he looked suspicious.

When they realized he didn't speak Spanish well, they became even more suspicious. After running his name through a computer, they realized Laurean was wanted in the United States to face charges in Lauterbach's death.

Guzman said Laurean told the arresting officers he had only 10 pesos (about US$1) in his pocket, and that he had been surviving by eating avocados and other fruit he found in the fields of the farming community where he was found.

The FBI said Laurean, 21, is awaiting extradition to the US, although local prosecutors in North Carolina cautioned the process could take a year or more.

"Laurean's swift arrest in Mexico was due to the diligence and dedication of the Mexican government and our law enforcement partners," Nathan Gray, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Charlotte office, said in a statement.

"This was truly an international effort, and we will do all we can to ensure Laurean is brought back to Onslow County (N.C.) as quickly as possible to answer the charges against him."

Authorities believe Laurean killed the 20-year-old Lauterbach, an Ohio native who was eight months pregnant when she died, in mid-December. Detectives have said he left behind a note for his wife in which he denied killing Lauterbach but admitted to burying her remains.

In the note, Laurean said Lauterbach committed suicide by cutting her own throat.

Authorities rejected the assertion, saying evidence indicates Lauterbach died of blunt force trauma to the head.

Tipped by the note, and not long after authorities went public in their search for the Lauterbach, detectives discovered the charred remains of the missing Marine and her fetus in a shallow grave in Laurean's backyard. Under North Carolina law, Laurean could not be charged in the death of the fetus.

Onslow County District Attorney Dewey Hudson told The Associated Press that investigators recently seized a computer belonging to Christina Laurean's sister, which Christina Laurean was using to communicate with her husband. He said he didn't know if evidence from the computer led directly to Laurean's arrest. He declined to discuss the contents of the communications, but authorities previously said Christina Laurean was cooperating with detectives.

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