A 60-year-old mother accused of torturing and killing her four-year-old daughter has been captured in Mexico, ending a 12-year manhunt that left her boyfriend already serving life.
Anna Marlene Somoza was arrested Sunday in Xochitepec, Mexico, and charged with first-degree murder in the 1997 death of Crystal Reyes. Authorities said the October 18 apprehension closed a long major-case chase by a U.S. Marshals Service task force.
Prosecutors and federal officials say the little girl was bound, suffocated with a taped towel, and left to die inside a sealed cardboard box. Somoza now awaits extradition to Arizona, where her former boyfriend, Avelino Tamala, was convicted of the same murder in 2016 and is serving a life sentence.
Crime desk reporting detailed how the arrest came nearly three decades after remains linked to the case were recovered, and 12 years after murder charges first issued against the pair.
Crystal Reyes was born November 25, 1993, in Nogales, Mexico. Officials said no birth record was filed. She was the daughter of Somoza and U.S. citizen Darren Stockwell.
By the mid-1990s, Somoza and Tamala lived in Ahwatukee, Arizona, with children from prior relationships, a niece, and a live-in housekeeper. Tamala had been a narcotics detective before resigning from a sheriff’s office in 1995.
The U.S. Marshals Service described what happened inside that house in stark terms.
U.S. Marshals Service language in its case release stated:
"Throughout Crystal’s brutally-short-lived life, Somoza and Tamala repeatedly tortured, starved and abused Crystal as an infant and young girl."
The agency also said:
"Behind closed doors, the young child was subjected to severe physical abuse, ultimately being confined to a small dog kennel."
Marshals material further reported that Somoza and Tamala would leave Crystal bound by her hands and feet, gagged in a small dog crate for weeks at a time.
Court documents obtained by the Arizona Republic later captured what the live-in housekeeper told investigators. The woman said Reyes was treated differently from the other children. She was barred from speaking to siblings or sharing meals. Her head was kept shaved. She was locked inside a kennel wearing only undergarments.
The housekeeper described the child as “very, very, very thin” and “skin and bones.” She said Reyes was kept in the dog kennel two to three weeks without food or water, becoming so weak she lacked the strength or breath to cry and could only “whine.”
Officials said the abuse escalated fatally. On January 30, 1997, prosecutors and federal authorities say, four-year-old Crystal was killed. They say she was bound, suffocated with a taped towel, and left to die inside a sealed cardboard box.
In 1998, remains were discovered in an Arizona desert setting. A hunter found a partial skeleton in a remote area; the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office recovered remains in December 1998. Identification would take years.
Somoza already had a lengthy drug history. In 1993 she was arrested for selling and transporting marijuana, then agreed to work as a confidential informant for an Arizona law enforcement agency. That is how she met Tamala. In 1999, the pair were arrested again on drug and weapons charges. DNA was collected at that time.
Forensic analysis later could not eliminate Somoza as the maternal source of the bone fragments. But investigators lacked a DNA profile from Crystal’s biological father. The case went cold while Somoza served an eight-year federal prison sentence.
The Marshals Service put it this way:
"Following their arrest, DNA was collected and later forensic analysis of the bone fragments found in the Arizona desert could not eliminate Somoza as the maternal source. However, investigators lacked a DNA profile from Crystal’s biological father. As a result, the case went cold while Somoza served an eight-year federal prison sentence."
Somoza was released and deported to Mexico in 2008.
In August 2014, forensic DNA testing identified the remains as Crystal Reyes, daughter of Somoza and Darren Stockwell. Murder charges followed that year against both Somoza and Tamala.
Tamala was convicted of first-degree murder in Maricopa County in 2016 and sentenced to life. He later tried to appeal. Somoza remained a fugitive.
A U.S. Marshals task force made the case a priority. Investigators determined she was hiding in Mexico. Officials said she took deliberate and extensive measures to evade law enforcement and alleged she had close connections with cartels.
On October 18, authorities apprehended Somoza in Xochitepec. She was charged with first-degree murder. As of the arrest reporting, officials were still coordinating her return to Arizona through Mexican partners.
U.S. Marshal Van Bayless for the District of Arizona said the work crossed the border for a reason.
Bayless stated:
"This disturbing case can finally move forward with justice for Crystal. Phoenix Police Department and Maricopa County Attorney's Office showed their unrelenting desire to get Somoza into court and prison for her atrocities to an innocent beautiful little girl."
He added that partners north and south of the border made the case a priority, and that she will be brought back and held accountable.
U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine for the District of Arizona struck a similar note on permanence of accountability.
Courchaine said:
"No one can hide from American justice forever. The United States Attorney’s office stands in partnership with both our federal and critically our state partners to ensure defendants have their day in court. We look forward to now working alongside our Mexican partners to bring this fugitive back to Arizona."
Phoenix Police thanked the Marshals Service and prosecutorial partners and said that with the suspect in custody, the case of Crystal Reyes can move forward.
One defendant is already in prison for life. The mother who allegedly shared the abuse and the final act is now in custody after 12 years as a fugitive. Extradition work continues so she can face a Maricopa County jury on the first-degree murder charge.
The timeline is long: birth without a filed record in 1993, fatal abuse alleged in 1997, desert remains recovered in 1998, a cold case through Somoza’s federal sentence and 2008 deportation, DNA identification in 2014, Tamala’s 2016 conviction, and Somoza’s 2025 capture in Mexico.
Law enforcement did not quit when the file went cold. A housekeeper’s later account, bone fragments, and parental DNA finally gave Crystal her name back. A task force then spent years tracking the woman accused of locking a toddler in a kennel and leaving her to die in a box.
When a mother is accused of starving and suffocating her own child, the only answer left is a courtroom, a verdict, and a sentence that matches the crime.
