After nearly a year on the run, the man wanted in connection with a murder in Methuen is back in Massachusetts and behind bars.
Emilio DeLarosa went before a Salem Superior Court judge Friday, where he was ordered held without bail on charges he choked Wanda Rosa, 29, to death in front of their 4-year-old son.
“He fled immediately following the murder despite constant efforts by the state police fugitive to locate him,” prosecutor Kate MacDougall said.
Authorities arrested DeLarosa in Patterson, California, on Sept. 6, where he was living and working under an alias. Police confirmed through fingerprints that the man they arrested was DeLarosa.
Rosa had an active restraining order against DeLarosa when she was strangled to death. Prosecutors said he had previously served a four-year sentence for beating Rosa.
“At 3 in the morning, a neighbor said she heard the mother’s 4-year-old boy scream, ‘No Dad, no Dad!’ but it stopped and she didn’t call police,” authorities noted in an arrest warrant.
The boy told police that his dad “choked his mother with his two hands” as he laid in bed with her, according to court paperwork.
DeLarosa was flown back to Bosaton’s Logan Airport and escorted into an awaiting state police cruiser late Thursday.
DeLarosa is due back in court on Sept. 22 for a bail hearing.
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