Butler County's No. 1 most wanted in custody

Man extradited to Butler County on rape, kidnapping charges.

HAMILTON — Butler County’s most wanted suspect, Alfredo Lopez Cruz, will be in common pleas court tomorrow for an arraignment.

Cruz, who stands accused of kidnapping and raping a 9-year-old girl on Father’s Day 2005, was returned to the county late Tuesday night after he was extradited from Mexico City.

Prosecutor Mike Gmoser said Cruz will be arraigned at 8:30 a.m. Thursday in Judge Keith Spaeth’s court.

Cruz is being held with no bond in the Butler County Jail. He is facing a five-count indictment on rape and kidnapping charges.

Cruz was arrested on March 18 in Mexico after an almost six-year manhunt. The suspect allegedly snatched the girl off of her bicycle and took her to a house in the 700 block of Sycamore Street, where he raped her, authorities said.

The girl later escaped, ran home naked and told family members she had been hurt by a man near there, according to police records.

He was indicted by a Butler County grand jury in December 2005 on four counts of rape and a charge of kidnapping. But he fled the area and then the country before being taken into custody.

Public outrage over the crime sparked a week of unrest in the 4th Ward neighborhood and heightened racial tensions there. The Sycamore Street home where the alleged rape occurred was razed after being vandalized and twice set on fire.

The girl, now 14 years old, has been adopted by another family and lives in the Greater Cincinnati area, sheriff’s officials said.

The girl’s biological father and grandmother have since moved to Oxford, according to their former Sycamore Street neighbors.

The almost six-year manhunt that involved the sheriff’s office fugitive division, Hamilton Police Department, Butler County Prosecutor’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Department of Justice, concluded last spring when Mexican Federal Police took Cruz into custody.

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