American accused of killing 3 women in Tijuana arrested in California

LOS ANGELES (AP) — U.S. authorities have arrested a California man accused of killing three women in the Mexican border city of Tijuana and crossing back and forth across the border after each of the deaths that occurred over the course of nearly a year starting in 2021.

According to U.S. court records, 30-year-old Bryant Rivera, a resident of Los Angeles suburb Downey, was arrested July 6 on a femicide charge in the strangulation death of Angela Carolina Acosta Flores, whose body was found in a hotel room in Tijuana on Jan. 25, 2022.

Mexico plans to request his extradition in order to present evidence to add charges for the deaths of two more women in Tijuana, according to court filings. Ricardo Ivan Carpio, the attorney general of the state of Baja California, said they will include new evidence found when Rivera was arrested in California. It was not immediately known if Rivera had retained an attorney.

Rivera appeared in federal court Monday, where U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen L. Stevenson ordered him to remain detained at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles for the duration of his extradition proceedings, according to Ciaran McEvoy, spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office. Mexico has 60 days to file a formal extradition request.

Acosta’s mother told Mexican authorities that her daughter worked next door as a dancer at a strip bar called the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club and occasionally as a sex worker. The mother told authorities she last heard from her daughter on Jan. 24, 2022, when she texted her that she would be taking one of her clients into room 404 at the Las Cascadas Hotel for 30 minutes at around 10:15 p.m., according to court records. At 10:45 p.m., her mother said she started texting her daughter but never heard from her.

Court records show Acosta’s boyfriend went to the club at 3 a.m. and was told by a worker there that Acosta had left with a customer who was a “gringo” named Bryant Rivera. After her daughter’s body was found in room 404, Acosta’s mother tracked her daughter’s cell phone to an address in Riverside, California.

Security camera footage from the hotel captured a man matching Rivera’s description and the victim entering room 404, according to court records.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection records show Rivera entered the United States on foot through the San Ysidro port of entry shortly after midnight on Jan. 25, 2022.