California man wanted in Mexico serial ‘femicide’ killings arrested

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A California man was arrested this week by U.S. officials as a fugitive from Mexico, where he is charged with femicide and accused of the serial killings of three women.

The man, who has been called by Mexican authorities the “Ted Bundy of Tijuana,” is accused of killing three women in Tijuana between September 2021 and February 2022, the Attorney General of Baja California’s office said. Bryant Rivera, 30, a was arrested Thursday and is being held at the request of Mexican authorities for one of the murders, according to court records obtained by USA TODAY.

Mexican authorities are expected to formally request that Rivera be extradited to Mexico, where prosecutors say they will pursue a maximum sentence for the three “femicides,” gender-motivated killings of women.

According to a criminal complaint against Rivera, he met with one of the victims, Ángela Carolina Acosta Flores, on Jan. 24, 2022. She was a dancer at a bar and also occasionally worked as a sex worker, the complaint says. Rivera and Acosta Flores were seen on surveillance footage entering a hotel room near the bar where she worked. Witnesses, including hotel employees, said Rivera had rented the room under the name “Eduardo.”

He allegedly left the room and crossed the border into the U.S. on foot shortly after. The woman’s body was found by hotel employees the next morning, after her mother and boyfriend expressed concern that she couldn’t be reached. She was strangled to death, an autopsy concluded, according to the criminal complaint.