Suspect held three years after murder

VICTOR MANUEL GARCIA

More than three years after 16-year-old Ceceline Godsoe was found

beaten to death in Fairview Park, Costa Mesa police detectives have

arrested Victor Manuel Garcia, the man who they suspect killed her.

Garcia, 20, was extradited from Mexico by U.S. Federal agents and

was brought to Houston, where Costa Mesa detectives arrested him

Thursday night.

Even though Ceceline’s father, William Godsoe, has been waiting

for this day, he wasn’t expecting the news of the arrest Friday

morning.

“I was just kind of numb,” he said. “It just kind of came out of

the blue.”

After Ceceline Godsoe was found dead on Sept. 21, 2001, police

said that Garcia, then 17, had been in the park with friends the

previous night and had met Ceceline.

The girl had been beaten with a blunt object so badly that she

drowned in her own blood, police said at the time.

Fingerprint evidence led police to question Garcia, who then left

Costa Mesa for Mexico, police said. The case was featured twice on

the television show “America’s Most Wanted.”

The publicity generated various leads, but what got Garcia

arrested is a crime he committed in Mexico, said Costa Mesa Police

Sgt. Marty Carver.

He was arrested in Mexico City in October 2003 on assault charges,

and since then, officials from the Orange County District Attorney’s

office have worked to get Garcia extradited, Carver said.

“We had to wait, because we knew he was in custody down in Mexico,

but there was no way of getting him up here,” Carver said.

“[The FBI] ended up calling us and telling us that he was going to

be released, and this is where we could pick him up at.”

Getting someone extradited from Mexico is time-consuming because

it involves the U.S. Attorney’s office and the Department of Justice

as well as Mexican authorities, and everything has to be translated,

said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy.

“We’re very grateful to the government of Mexico for extraditing

Mr. Garcia to face trial for what he did,” Murphy said. “They were

very cooperative with us.”

Garcia is being held in the Costa Mesa jail and is not eligible

for bail. He will be arraigned Monday in the Orange County Superior

Court Juvenile Justice Center because he was 17 at the time of the

homicide.

Prosecutors will petition to have Garcia tried as an adult, Murphy

said. Because he was a juvenile when the crime occurred, Garcia will

not face the death penalty if convicted.

Typically in California, the penalty for a murder conviction is 15

years to life in prison, Murphy said.

William Godsoe plans to be at the court proceedings. He hopes they

will answer questions about what happened to his daughter, whom he

described as a free-spirited girl.

“I want to know after all this time what happened out there on

that bluff, and I want to know why my daughter was killed,” he said.

The next phase of the case is only beginning for Murphy, but he’s

satisfied that the extradition finally came about.

“I’ve put so many hours into that,” he said. “I thought it was all

for nothing. I thought it was going to be a waste of time.”

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at

[email protected].