Only Woman On 'Most Wanted' List Spotlighted In Arrest
A fugitive couple - on the run since 2009 - is now in custody after U.S. Marshals arrested the two in Portland, Oregon. But one of them is getting more attention than the other.
NWCN reports that "A big bust in Portland: U.S. Marshals arrested the one-and-only woman on their top 15 Most Wanted list."
Janet Barreto made the headline on CNN as well, with the outlet describing how, "For five years, they pursued her, always one step behind as she used aliases and altered her appearance to elude them."
Barreto and her husband Ramon are accused of killing a 2-year-old Guatemalan girl they adopted, as well as keeping seven others in horrible conditions and torturing them at their home in Mississippi.
WMC-TV reported "Filth and smell - the smell is something I'll never forget."
"Investigators say the children were duct-taped to beds, dunked under water and even punched in the stomach."
Even the U.S. Marshals' statement on the case focuses on Barreto with an official writing, "Janet Barreto is a malicious individual who allegedly abused innocent children on multiple occasions and forced them to live in appalling conditions."
Police say the couple went on the run after making bail before their trial. As for how the couple were able to elude police for so long?
KPTV: "They were great people. Really nice, very friendly ... They didn't seem to me like they were hiding from anything, but to find out that they were 180 degrees from what they portrayed, I mean they should've gone into acting."
As The Oregonian reports, the couple had been living at an apartment complex in Vancouver, Washington, for as long as a year before being arrested in a shopping mall parking lot after authorities got a tip on their whereabouts.
Now the pair will reportedly be extradited back to Mississippi to face charges of manslaughter of a child, child abuse, child neglect, tampering with a witness and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
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