A man and a woman wanted for allegedly abducting their children from Las Vegas to avoid an investigation have been arrested nine years later near the Illinois-Wisconsin border, police said.
A Lake County Sheriff’s Deputy on patrol around 11:20 p.m. Tuesday said he spotted what he called “suspicious activity” in a truck parking lot at the Truckstops of America in Russell.
A 40-year-old woman in the vehicle, Maria Rosaline Malagon-Castillo of Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, and 39-year-old Victor Manuel Ruiz-Garcia both had outstanding arrest warrants out of Las Vegas for non-custodial parental abduction, which occurred in 2006, according to the Lake County Sheriff’s office.
Police said Ruiz-Garcia, an over the road truck driver, had a fake Nevada commercial driver’s license that had been suspended.
Police said the couple’s children, who were listed as missing through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, were found by police in the 7800 block of 88th Street in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.
Police allege the parents fled with their kids, now 14 and 9, to avoid an investigation into an allegation of drug abuse by Malagon-Castillo during pregnancy. The children were deemed wards of the state of Nevada in 2006 and have now been turned over to a family member pending review of the case.
Ruiz-Garcia and Malagon-Castillo were being held without bond at the Lake County Jail pending extradition back to Nevada.
