A case can go cold on law enforcement and leave them waiting.
They never know when they will get their big break.
And a Florida sheriff arrested one scary fugitive in a bust that was 40 years in the making.
An escaped prisoner on the lam for 40 years is finally caught
Jorge Milla-Valdes, a 63-year-old, escaped from a prison in Puerto Rico in 1987 and disappeared.
Milla-Valdes moved to Florida and began using the alias, Luis Aguirre.
For nearly 40 years, he was able to maintain his secret identity in the Sunshine State.
He learned that he could run but he could not hide forever.
The Puerto Rico Department of Justice reached out to the Lee County, Florida Sheriff’s Office that Milla-Valdes could be living in the area under a fake name and gave them a set of his fingerprints.
Lee County Sheriff’s Office latent Fingerprints Supervisor Tina Carver ran with the prints Puerto Ricans gave her against her database.
She found an exact match between Luis Aguirre’s fingerprints and the missing fugitive Jorge Milla-Valdes in 15 minutes.
Aguirre was living in Leigh Acres, Florida, and kept his criminal activities hidden under his new name.
He had been charged with robbery and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon in Monroe County.
Lee County records show that he was arrested under the Aguirre alias for a traffic violation, fraudulent date of birth, failure to appear for a court date, and a parole violation.
That was all the sheriff’s office needed to obtain an arrest warrant.
Longtime fugitive learns he cannot hide forever
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office Fugitive Warrants Unit tracked Milla-Valdes down in Fort Myers Shores, Florida two hours after the fingerprint match.
A bodycam video shows the Fugitive Warrants Unit, which specializes in serving high-risk warrants, moving in on the house where Milla-Valdes was.
“You go by the name Jorge?” a sheriff’s deputy asked.
“Yeah, I used to,” Milla-Valdes replied.
He realized that the jig was up at the point.
“Yeah,” the sheriff’s deputy said.
“Years ago — about 40 years ago,” Milla-Valdes said.
The sheriff’s deputy asked him if that was when he escaped from a prison in Puerto Rico.
“Puerto Rico?” Milla-Valdes asked sheepishly. “Yeah.”
“Okay, okay. Well, this is what this is about, okay? You got a warrant for your arrest out of Puerto Rico for escaping prison down there, okay?” the sheriff’s deputy stated.
“Yeah, but they kill me, they don’t want me back,” Milla-Valdes claimed.
The sheriff’s deputy told him that Puerto Rico wanted him back and arrested him.
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno praised the work that his team did to finally bring Jorge Milla-Valdes to justice after nearly four decades on the lam.
“Thanks to the hard work and determination of my Fugitive Warrants Unit and Latent Fingerprints Supervisor Tina Carver, a positive fingerprint identification was made within MINUTES,” Marceno said. “My team’s skill is unmatched at every level; even if your crimes don’t start here in Lee County, I promise, they WILL end here.”
Milla-Valdes is being held until he can be shipped back to Puerto Rico.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
