A woman wanted in connection with her 4-year-old daughter’s death in 1998 was apprehended in Mexico, the U.S. Marshals Service announced.
Anna Marlene Somoza, 60, was wanted on first-degree murder charges for more than 12 years after a grand jury indictment in 2014 led to charges against her and her boyfriend Avelino Tamala, a former Maricopa County sheriff's deputy.
He was convicted in the child’s death in 2016 and was sentenced to life in prison.
Somoza was detained by Mexican authorities in the southern state of Morelos on Oct. 18 by her “close connections with cartels,” the U.S. Marshals Service said in a news release.
In 1998, a hunter in Arizona discovered human bone fragments in Mobile, just west of the city of Maricopa, and the remains went unidentified for nearly two decades, the announcement said.
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Forensic DNA analysis successfully matched the fragments to Crystal Reyes, a 4-year-old girl and daughter of Somoza, in August 2014. Later that year, authorities issued an arrest warrant, and leads suggested Somoza was in Mexico.
Investigators stated she had “taken deliberate and extensive measures to evade law enforcement,” the release said.
In 2026, her case was designated a “major case,” adding manpower and resources to the investigation.
Somoza was expected to be extradited to Arizona.
Child faced abuse before death
Somoza gave birth to Reyes in 1993 in Nogales, Mexico, which went undocumented, and she was later brought to Arizona, the Marshals Service stated.
She took her daughter to live in Ahwatukee, Arizona, where Reyes was “subjected to severe physical abuse, ultimately being confined to a small dog kennel,” the release said.
Somoza and Tamala “repeatedly tortured, starved, and abused” Reyes as an infant and young girl, the release said.
Tamala, Somoza, three of her children from previous marriages, a niece and a live-in housekeeper lived in the Ahwatukee home, according to court documents from a 2018 Arizona Court of Appeals decision.
The housekeeper, years later, described the abuse to investigators, court records showed.
Reyes was treated differently from the other children and not allowed to interact with the children or share meals with the family, court documents said.
The pair locked up Reyes in a kennel in just her undergarments and kept her “always bald,” the court records showed.
The housekeeper described Reyes’ appearance as “very, very, very thin” and that she was just “skin and bones,” according to court documents.
The housekeeper told investigators the 4-year-old didn’t even have enough breath to keep crying, and “she would just whine,” according to court documents.
Court records stated the pair had confined Reyes in the small dog kennel for two to three weeks without food or water.
“The abuse escalated fatally on January 30, 1997, when the child was bound, suffocated with a taped towel, and left to die inside a sealed cardboard box,” the release said.
Somoza had extensive criminal history
The U.S. Marshals Service stated Somoza had a criminal history connected to drug trafficking along the border throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
She was arrested in 1993 for transporting marijuana and agreed to act as a confidential informant for an Arizona law enforcement agency, the release said.
In that time, she met Tamala, who was a narcotics detective, and the two had an “improper romantic relationship.”
Tamala resigned from the Sheriff's Office in 1995, court records showed.
In 1999, the pair was arrested for drug and weapon offenses and DNA was collected.
Somoza was released after an eight-year federal prison sentence in 2008 and deported to Mexico, the release said.
It wasn’t until investigators located the girl’s biological father and received DNA from him that they identified the remains.
