A 60-year-old woman has been arrested in Mexico after spending years evading authorities over the murder of her young daughter, Crystal Reyes, whose remains were discovered in Arizona more than a year after her death.
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Anna Marlene Somoza was taken into custody by Mexican law enforcement officers in Xochitepec, Mexico, on October 18, 2026, following an extensive search coordinated by the United States Marshals Service. Authorities are now working with the Mexican government to secure her extradition to the United States, where she is expected to face a first-degree murder charge.
According to the US Marshals Service, Somoza had remained a fugitive for more than 12 years after investigators linked her to the child’s death. Officials also said her connections to criminal networks had complicated efforts to locate her.
Investigators said Crystal endured severe abuse at the hands of her mother before her death in January 1997.
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According to the US Marshals Service, the child was subjected to physical abuse, torture and starvation. She was reportedly confined inside a small dog kennel, with her hands and feet restrained and her mouth gagged for extended periods.
On January 30, 1997, Crystal was bound and suffocated with a towel taped over her face before being placed inside a sealed cardboard box and left to die, authorities said.
The investigation into her death began months later, in November 1998, when a hunter discovered human bone fragments in a deserted area of Arizona.
However, it took years for investigators to establish the victim’s identity. In August 2014, forensic DNA testing confirmed that the remains belonged to Crystal Reyes.
Detectives subsequently interviewed Crystal’s biological father and used his DNA to confirm her identity. Investigators said the evidence provided sufficient grounds to charge Somoza and her boyfriend at the time, Avelino Tamala, with first-degree murder in December 2014.
Tamala was convicted of Crystal’s murder in 2016 and sentenced to life imprisonment. Somoza, meanwhile, remained at large.
Before Crystal’s death, Somoza had a criminal history connected to a major transnational drug-trafficking network operating along the southern Arizona border during the 1980s and 1990s, according to authorities.
Following her 1993 arrest for the sale and transportation of marijuana, Somoza agreed to work as a confidential informant for an Arizona law enforcement agency.
It was through that arrangement that she met Tamala, a narcotics detective. The US Marshals Service said the two later began “an improper romantic relationship.”
Crystal was born in Mexico in 1993. Not long after her birth, Somoza and the child began living with Tamala in Arizona, although he was not Crystal’s biological father, according to the agency.
In 1999, Somoza and Tamala were arrested on drug- and weapons-related charges. Somoza subsequently served eight years in federal prison before being deported in 2008.
When DNA evidence connected Crystal’s remains to her identity in 2014, investigators from five state and federal agencies began searching for Somoza.
The US Marshals Service said she had “taken deliberate and extensive measures to evade detection by law enforcement while remaining at large.”
Authorities obtained an arrest warrant in October 2022 that would allow them to pursue her extradition to the United States. Despite the warrant, locating her remained a challenge.
In 2026, the search was elevated to a major case, bringing additional personnel and investigative resources into the operation, according to the agency.