Fugitives

A fugitive accused of shooting a man to death outside a Stanton bar in 2005 and televised on "America's Most Wanted" was arrested in Phoenix and returned to Orange County, where he was charged with murder Thursday, authorities said. Cuong Viet Nguyen, 27, formerly of Garden Grove, faces one felony county of murder and one felony count of attempted murder in addition to enhancements related to the discharge of a firearm causing death and great bodily injury.

He grew a bushy white beard and called himself Doctor David. He peddled meditation and alternative healing, sold amulets on a website and made the rounds on the lecture circuit. Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader regarded as one of the world's most notorious fugitive war-crimes suspects, built a life on the lam that was public, if disguised, and seemingly unfettered by fears of detection.

Alleged drug kingpin Ever Villafane Martinez, a Colombian believed to be the main cocaine supplier to an offshoot of Mexico's notorious Sinaloa cartel, was arrested in Mexico City, federal police said Friday. One of the hemisphere's most wanted fugitives, Villafane Martinez has been on the lam since 2001, when he escaped from a maximum-security lockup in Colombia while awaiting extradition to the United States on narcotics charges.

Two former U.S. Border Patrol agents who fled the country while under investigation for alleged immigrant smuggling have been arrested in Tijuana after a two-year manhunt, federal authorities announced Monday. The suspects, brothers Raul and Fidel Villarreal, were being investigated on suspicion of smuggling illegal immigrants in their government vehicles when they abruptly resigned and disappeared in June 2006.

He appears in a restaurant, picks up everyone's tab, then vanishes with his many guards. He stars in his wedding, government officials among the guests. He is captured, then released. Twice. Or maybe not. Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's most-wanted drug-trafficking fugitive, chalks up more sightings than Elvis. He is everywhere, and nowhere, a long-sought criminal always a step ahead of the law, yet always in sight or mind.

When 34-year-old Ana Maria Garcia went missing last month, the Ontario woman's family immediately suspected her boyfriend was somehow involved, authorities said. There was a trail of blood leading from the couple's bedroom to the living room and, like Garcia, Mario Reyes was nowhere to be found. "We knew right away," said Garcia's brother, Lorenzo Garcia. "Because he never left her alone for a moment. He was very possessive."

A former Los Angeles County probation department clerk who fled the country earlier this year after she was charged with bigamy and insurance fraud was captured in Mexico over the weekend, authorities said Monday. Damaris Ninet Amesquita, 30, was found Saturday by a bail bonds agent in Mexicali, said Los Angeles County district attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons.

At a hearing next month, the words "People versus Roman Polanski" will ring out in a courtroom for the first time in 30 years. Those gathered are certain to include prosecutors, defense attorneys and a throng of reporters, but the Oscar-winning director is not expected. That empty chair at the defense table, experts say, makes his request for a dismissal of the three-decade-old sex charge a legal long-shot.

In Denmark, Stein Bagger's spectacular fall from technology golden boy to alleged scam artist and international fugitive has captivated many of the country's 5 million residents. His purported fraud, said to be as high as $170 million, is the biggest scandal in 20 years. But when Bagger, 41, strode into the Los Angeles police station near skid row on Saturday morning, officers wondered whether he was delusional. "I am Stein Bagger," the man said, putting his hands on the counter.

When Marine Lance Cpl. Lance Hering returned home to his family in Boulder, Colo., in August 2006 after a combat tour in Iraq, he seemed unusually quiet. His parents, Lloyd and Elynne Hering, were aware that he had been hospitalized briefly in Iraq and Germany in the final months of his deployment. They thought he was "emotionally flat," but they knew better than to pry.