Story Created:
Jul 18, 2008 at 4:56 PM CST
Story Updated:
Jul 18, 2008 at 6:14 PM CST
July 18, 2008
One in particular dating back almost 20 years, is now closer to being solved. The only suspect in the case was recently located and brought back to face justice.
But not before managing to elude police several times. The suspect is now 50 years old. At the time of the murder of his ex girlfriends new boyfriend he was 29. The victim Guadalupe Davila was 43.
Although time has passed the murder remains etched in the mind of one investigator.
"He killed this guy, the victim, cold blooded," says Nueces County Sheriff's Captain Paul Rivera who was a Corpus Christi police investigator at the time of the murder.
Rivera says, "the way he killed this person was brutal." There's an empty space now where a mobile home once stood. At 3 in the morning back in January of 1989 the silence was shattered there.
Rivera says of the suspect, "he went into the bedroom where the victim was asleep with the new girlfriend and the victim, Guadalupe Davila, woke up and he shot him five times."
Within hours Berlanga was arrested and booked for murder. The weapon was also recovered. A $25,000 dollar bond was ordered but was later reduced to $2,000. Berlanga paid the bond and skipped town. A year would pass before investigators located him in the valley town of Los Fresnos.
But hours before he was to be picked up he again managed to elude police.
Rivera says, "i took time, went to the border patrol, the check point, took pictures of his tattoos and i never, not a lead anywhere."
It would be 19 years before Rivera got a break in the case. Hearing of the success U.S. Marshals had had in recent months rounding up convicted felons, Rivera turned to them.
Rivera adds, "and about a week later this guy was apprehended in North Carolina. And I'm not too sure but I think he had a different name, he had a new family a new life."
Berlanga remains in the Nueces county jail on a charge of murder with no bond.
If convicted he faces life in prison.
Rudy Trevino 3 News.
Saturday, Jul 19 at 10:08 PM Desiree Davila wrote ...
Guadalupe Davila is my grandfather that i never met because of this man. HE SHOULD GET LIFE AND SUFFER THE WAY WE HAVE!
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