A man wanted for a murder in Colorado is now in jail in the Buena Vista County. Storm Lake police Captain Todd Erskine says though they didn’t know it, they met the man nearly three months ago. In October 2004 police interviewed the man in connection with a stabbing by a roommate of his at the time. Police interviewed 25-year-old Oscar Godinez as they investigated that incident, and the captain says an officer remembered that interview last week when a message arrived from another jurisdiction. January 6 they got a call from another police department in Monte Vista County, Colorado, saying they had an arrest warrant for Oscar Godinez and they thought he was in the Storm lake area. An officer here remembered speaking with a man who fit the description although he’d been using the name Nicholas Rodriguez. Officers went to the Sara Lee plant in Storm Lake and talked with the suspect. They went to the plant and talked to Godinez, then arrested him for having false documents. They called the I-N-S and sheriff’s office, and determined that Nicholas Rodriguez was actually Oscar Godinez and was wanted in Colorado for second-degree murder. The man had identification papers apparently showing the false name, and was arrested on local charges of forgery. Captain Erskine says credit goes to the local police lieutenant who remembered interviewing the man when the latest report arrived, and put them together. INS officials used technology they have to make a positive identification, but Erskine says it was “just good old-fashioned police work” that caught him. After he appears in court on the forgery charges in Buena County, extradition proceedings will get underway to send him to Colorado. Prosecutors there say they want him in connection with what they describe as a gang style slaying.
