Updated

Updated · Fox News · Nov 14

Miguel Angel Urbano-Vazquez Convicted in 2002 Murder and 3 Tacoma Rapes After 24 Years

Updated

Updated · Fox News · Nov 14

Miguel Angel Urbano-Vazquez Convicted in 2002 Murder and 3 Tacoma Rapes After 24 Years

Q: What crucial mistake led to the overseas capture of a killer who evaded justice for over two decades?

The key mistake was that Miguel Angel Urbano-Vazquez was ultimately located in Mexico after authorities learned where he had been deported and were able to track him down there, leading to his 2023 arrest by the FBI in Chimalhuacan, Estado de Mexico. The reporting provided does not indicate that a single dramatic blunder—such as using a false name badly, crossing a border carelessly, or contacting U.S. authorities—directly triggered his capture. Instead, the breakthrough came from forensic and investigative work over time. DNA evidence tied him in 2012 to Sharon Van Gilder’s murder and three other rapes, but he had already disappeared. Investigators later discovered, in 2018, that he had been deported to Mexico, and that allowed the FBI to begin locating him overseas. In practical terms, the “mistake” that ended his decades of evasion was not escaping the reach of DNA evidence and immigration records. Once detectives connected the 2002 crimes to him and confirmed he had been removed to Mexico, international coordination made his arrest possible. He was captured in 2023 and extradited to Washington in 2025, where prosecutors obtained the DNA sample that confirmed the match and helped secure his conviction.

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Nov 14

A Pierce County jury found Miguel Angel Urbano-Vazquez guilty on Nov. 3 of aggravated first-degree murder in the 2002 rape and strangling of 39-year-old Sharon Van Gilder, plus rape charges tied to three other Tacoma-area attacks.
DNA testing in 2012 linked Van Gilder’s killing to the other rapes, but prosecutors said a confirming sample came only after Urbano-Vazquez was captured abroad in 2023 and extradited from Mexico in 2025.
Van Gilder was last seen leaving a Tacoma bar with Urbano-Vazquez and another man in March 2002; hours later, her beaten, naked body was found along a road in Spanaway.
Sentencing is set for Dec. 11, and under Washington law an aggravated murder conviction carries life in prison without parole.
Family members called the verdict relief after nearly 25 years, while Van Gilder’s cousin Brenda Doty said she fears the convicted serial rapist may have additional victims.