Donna fugitive finally behind bars

ALAMO - Donna's most wanted fugitive is behind bars - but not after leading authorities on yet another car chase Monday.

Manuel Alvarez - for whom Donna police had offered a $1,000 reward earlier this month - led Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies from the Weslaco area to Alamo.

Deputies said Alvarez, 33, crashed into a Ford Explorer and tried to carjack two vehicles in his latest attempt to flee justice.

The Donna man has at least 12 area arrest warrants stacked against him. He was acquitted of a murder charge in January after a key witness refused to testify against him.

Another police chase he escaped two weeks ago, in Donna, also ended in a crash that injured an innocent bystander.

But Alvarez ran into a dead-end in his attempts to evade police Monday afternoon after a burglary report was filed northwest of Weslaco.

A homeowner near Mile 6 ½ West and Mile 9 North reported coming home to find someone stealing jewelry around 1p.m., Hidalgo County sheriff's Deputy Lt. Norberto Leal said.

The suspect then fled in a brown pick-up truck.

Within 30 minutes of filing the report, a deputy in the area spotted a truck matching that description heading west on Frontage Road and started following it to get a closer look, Leal said. That's when the driver stepped on it and made a u-turn at Alamo Road to head east on Frontage.

Investigators said the pick-up truck, driven by Alvarez, crashed into a Ford Explorer at Tower Road, sending the male driver, and sole occupant, to the hospital. Leal did not know the condition of the driver Monday afternoon, or any further details like his name or hometown.

After the crash into the Explorer, Alvarez allegedly tried to carjack two nearby vehicles to continue his escape, Leal said. But deputies grabbed him as he attempted the second carjacking. No one else was injured.

Leal said authorities did not believe Alvarez was armed at the time or under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

But the Donna resident is expected to be charged today with evading arrest and possibly even burglary if he is identified as the suspect in the report filed earlier Monday afternoon. It wasn't clear if he might also face charges in connection with the innocent bystanders' injuries.

Alvarez had managed to avoid police capture at least four times since he was last released from the Hidalgo County Jail in January.

Before Monday's incident, he was a passenger in a car parked near the intersection of Business 83 and Victoria Road on June 5.

Following a tip, Donna police tried to pull the vehicle over before they say Alvarez shoved the driver out of the car and took off.

In January 2006, after his mother and sisters fought off deputies who arrived to arrest him in connection with a burned body case, he managed to escape to Danville, Ill.

But by December of that year, both of his parents had been found shot dead - execution-style - and Alvarez was arrested blocks from the Illinois scene breaking into a car.

That's when investigators first publicly linked him to the December 2005 murder of Apolinar Ramos - whose charred remains were found in a truck in a sugar cane field in Donna. By 2007, Alvarez had been extradited back to Hidalgo County to face a murder trial.

Prosecutors alleged Alvarez had shot Ramos and burned his body as revenge for the death - under similar fiery circumstances - of Alvarez's brother Lorenzo days before.

But a key witness in the case refused to testify, leading prosecutors to drop their case against him in January of this year.

Alvarez now faces at least 12 warrants for crimes such as auto theft, burglary, forgery and evading arrest - including seven felony charges.

While the Mid-Valley's seemingly most notorious fugitive was nabbed after Donna police issued the $1,000 reward for his capture - and after countless tips leading to his near-nabs - no one is set to collect the goods now. As Alvarez's luck would finally have it Monday, he simply pushed it one time too far all on his own.