Denver man, 57, who fled to Mexico with the body of his girlfriend in the trunk of his car in 1998 is charged with murder and kidnapping months after his extradition
A Denver man who was extradited from Mexico to the US last year in connection with the 1998 cold-case homicide of his girlfriend has been charged with her murder and kidnapping.
The Denver District Attorney's Office on Wednesday announced the charges against Crespin Nene-Perez for the killing of 47-year-old Bonny Baker.
Nene-Perez, 57, appeared in court on Wednesday for a preliminary hearing concerning the newly filed charges of first-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping.
Crespin Nene-Perez, 47 , has been charged with first-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping in the 1998 killing of his live-in girlfriend, Bonny Baker, 47
Nene-Perez was among five fugitives who were handed over to the US by the Mexican government in May 2020.
Baker was Nene-Perez's live-in girlfriend when she went missing from their apartment on Louisiana Avenue in Denver on June 30, 1998.
According to an arrest affidavit, earlier that night Baker had been celebrating with a group of friends after getting a raise at The Fort restaurant where both she and Nene-Perez worked.
When her boyfriend arrived home that night, he was described as 'acting weird and his eyes were glazed, like he was on something like cocaine,' according to the affidavit cited by 9News. Witnesses said he seemed angry that Baker was drinking and dancing with other people, and he was 'mean mugging everyone.'
A friend later recounted that Baker's last words at the party were: 'it would be better if I just go now or it would be worse.'
Early the next morning, police got a call from an unknown woman, who reported that Baker was killed after a fight with her boyfriend at 8pm the previous night, according to the affidavit.
Nene-Perez was extradited from Mexico to Colorado in May 2020, seven years after a warrant was issued for his arrest in Denver
The caller said the boyfriend was heading to Mexico with Baker's body in the trunk of his car, which he planning to dispose of along the way.
The woman told police she and others had noticed Nene-Perez’s car trunk was moving, reported The Denver Post.
Officers who responded to the couple's apartment found no signs of struggle. Immediate efforts to locate Nene-Perez and Baker were unsuccessful.
Hours later, Nene-Perez wrecked his car in Globe, Arizona, but by the time local police arrived on the scene, he had fled on foot, reported The Denver Channel.
Investigators did collect blood evidence from the suspect's car and in the trunk.
In July 1999, two boys riding horses in a remote part of Navajo tribal grounds in New Mexico came upon a human skull and called the authorities.
A medical examiner failed to determine a cause of deaths, and the skull languished in storage for the next 15 years, until in 2012 Baker’s cold case was reopened and DNA samples from the remains confirmed that they belonged to the missing woman.
Prosecutors believe Baker had been buried in a shallow grave in New Mexico the day after she had been reported missing.
‘In 2013, a Denver cold case detective completed a further round of witness interviews and forensic testing and concluded, based on that evidence, that there were sufficient grounds to arrest Mr. Nene-Perez,’ the DA’s office wrote in a news release.
A warrant was issued for Nene-Perez's arrest, but he was found to be living in Mexico at the time. It took another seven years to have him extradited back to Colorado.
The district attorney's office did not say how they think Nene-Perez killed his girlfriend.