Accused killer of Mexican girl arrested in Las Vegas

Cathy Scott

Tuesday, July 29, 1997 | 9:50 a.m.

A mother's search for the alleged killer of her 18-month-old baby girl ended when FBI agents and Metro Police arrested the toddler's father in Las Vegas in connection with the July 3 murder in Mexico.

The arrest won't bring Georgina Ponce Novelo back, but it will bring the man accused of murdering her to justice.

"In talking to the wife, I think he was just vindictive," Metro Sgt. Al Cervantes said. "If he can't have the child, then she can't, and nobody can. I think it was done more for spite."

Police say the girl's father, 21-year-old Santiago Ponce Jr., fatally shot the toddler near Nuevo Casas Grande in Chihuahua, Mexico, as he sat with her in a cab while on their way from Nuevo Casas Grande to another city in Chihuahua, Cervantes said.

The cab driver was also shot to death, in the back of the head. After his daughter and the cab driver were killed, Ponce allegedly set the cab on fire and fled. Casas Grande is about 75 miles south of the Mexico-Arizona border.

Members of a joint team of FBI special agents and Metro officers, in contact with the Mexican consulate and Arizona authorities, were waiting for Ponce as he arrived at the downtown Las Vegas Greyhound bus depot from Arizona about 5 a.m. Thursday.

"He tried to run but we had four or five people there," Cervantes said. "We put him on the ground and arrested him."

In his pockets were bus tickets from Casas Grande to the Mexico-Arizona border, Cervantes said.

Ponce, in the United States illegally, was expected to be deported to Mexico "within days or weeks," Cervantes said. He has several outstanding traffic warrants from Nye County.

Police believe he was on his way to Overton, in Clark County, where his brother lives. The traffic warrants have to be cleared by Nye County officials before Ponce can be deported, Cervantes said.

Local U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents are arranging for his transportation, he said. Mexican police have issued two murder warrants for Ponce's arrest and will serve those upon his arrival in Mexico, Cervantes said.

Ponce allegedly took Georgina from her mother's house in Los Angeles to Mexico. She was last seen July 2 getting into a cab with her father.

Los Angeles Police "wouldn't take a parental kidnapping (report) because there were no documents saying who had custody," Cervantes said. Family members, instead, launched their own search, he said.

The mother, Diana Novelo of Los Angeles, had been frantically searching for Georgina and had circulated fliers in Mexico about the abduction.

"The family had put out all these fliers and alerted the Mexican authorities," Cervantes said. Mexican police, in turn, notified the family about the murders in the cab, he said. The toddler was identified from the jewelry she wore: a small silver bracelet with her name engraved on it and unique earrings.