Laguna Beach : Woman Wins Fight to Get Son’s Killer Jailed
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A Laguna Beach woman has successfully fought for her son’s killer to be extradited to Mexico.
Santa Cruz County Dist. Atty. Gary Fry said Diane Crow had waged a five-year battle with Mexican officials to extradite John Ward, the man convicted of killing her 21-year-old son in Baja California. Ward was arrested Tuesday afternoon by FBI officials as he arrived for his weekly meeting with his parole officer at the Santa Cruz County Jail.
Ward was convicted of killing Mitchell Kessler in 1985 and sentenced to seven years in a Mexican prison. But after only serving 11 months, his sentence was reduced to four years. Ward was released on probation in February, 1986, and disappeared. He was captured in November by the international police agency Interpol in Mexico City and returned to Santa Cruz County in California, where he had been convicted of assaulting a police officer in 1983.
Though he has completed his California sentence, he now faces extradition to Mexico to complete his sentence for Kessler’s murder.
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