zirovsky

Martha Morales

Twenty years ago, Martha Morales of Plainfield, Union County, New Jersey, United States shared an apartment with Fausto Ramiro Santos Carillo on East Third Street in Plainfield. She was 49 and he was 37.

On July 23, 2003, Plainfield Police Department officers responded to the apartment and found Morales unresponsive inside the apartment. She had stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene.

After Morales’s death, Carillo went missing. Authorities were not able to identify a suspect.

The case went cold. For almost two decades, Carillo remained a fugitive.

Juan Mattos Jr.

From 2004 to 2011, Juan Mattos Jr. was an adjunct professor at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, Monmouth County, New Jersey. He taught undergraduate courses in the university’s Criminal Justice Department.

From January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017, Barack Obama served as the 44th U.S. president. In July 2011, he appointed Mattos Jr. to become the U.S. Marshal for the District of New Jersey.

“Fausto Carillo chose to avoid capture by hiding abroad,” Mattos stated after Carillo’s extradition from Guatemala to New Jersey. “He believed distance was his sanctuary.”

Fausto Carillo

In February 2018, the Union County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Task Force received a tip about the possible location of Carillo. It was later confirmed that he was in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

On March 21, 2022, members of the U.S. Marshals Service arrested Carillo in Guatemala where he was held. On November 4, 2022, he was extradited to New Jersey.

Carillo was charged with murder and weapons-related offenses. He faces the possibility of up to life in state prison.