She had been waiting for this news for several years.
But when the message arrived on August 26, 2022, Josephine Wentzel suddenly had to face a painful possibility. She spent six years tracking down the man authorities believed was responsible for her daughter's murder, a search that spanned thousands of miles, international borders and dozens of possible sightings that ultimately yielded little.
Wentzel declined to identify the sender of the message, but said it allegedly contained a recent photograph of Raymond McLeod, who at the time was one of the most wanted fugitives of the US Marshals Service.. Has it really been found – or will it be another surge of false hope?
She said she focused on the image and was “just scared, oh my gosh, it's him. I didn't even want to think about it because someone might hear my thoughts and warn him to run.”
McLeod, a 42-year-old former U.S. Marine, was detained in El Salvador days later and is awaiting trial in San Diego on charges of first-degree murder in the June 2016 strangulation death of Crystal Mitchell. He begged not guilty, preliminary hearing set for March. His lawyers either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment. Court documents say McLeod accidentally killed Mitchell during “rough, consensual sex that went wrong.”
Wentzel, a 67-year-old grandmother and former police detective, was preparing for life as a snowbird in an RV when her daughter was killed. She used the incredible platform she developed while pursuing McLeod to write two books – The Chase and The Capture – and help other grieving parents cope with the mixture of frustration, despair and confusion left by the unsolved murder.
In recent years, Wentzel has provided assistance to a non-profit organization that assists law enforcement in a number of cases, including disappearance and presumed murder of Maya MilleteAccording to the executive director of the Cold Case Foundation. Through the nonprofit organization Wentzel founded, Angels of Justice, she launched a campaign calling for the White House treat There are a huge number of unsolved murders in the country as a national emergency.
In a statement, the White House press secretary blamed former President Joe Biden for law enforcement's failure to “truly fight crime” and said President Donald Trump is “restoring integrity to our justice system.”
A spokesman for the Marshals Service, which detained McLeod, declined to comment. to questions about Wentzel's role in his search, but in a statement after McLeod's capture, the agency's director said Wentzel “has worked diligently with law enforcement in recent years to see this day of justice come.”
The San Diego County District Attorney's Office said it was instrumental in the search for McLeod.
“She's going for it,” said Pat Kuiper, who credits Wentzel for helping investigators in Washington state take another look at her son's unsolved murder from nearly two decades ago. “She goes for it in such a way that people can’t really refuse her, because she’s so sincere and kind, but persistent, assertive.”
For Rachel Glass, whose daughter was found strangled with her pregnant roommate in Arizona 15 years agoWentzel listened sensitively and provided insight into the investigative process that Glass, a veteran nurse, knew nothing about.
“If something happens and you're like, what the hell is this, I would call her and say, 'You're not going to believe what just happened,'” Glass recalls. “And she can tell me x, y and z about why things have to happen the way they do.”
Wentzel's husband of nearly three decades, a former post office maintenance engineer, attributes her latest chapter to the tenacity she has always shown.
“That’s what I’m missing,” he said. “I can easily get frustrated and say, forget it. But my wife, she won't forget it.”
Deadly Date in San Diego
For Wentzel, this chapter began shortly after her daughter's death. According to a statement of facts filed by the San Diego County District Attorney's Office, McLeod got into a fight at a San Diego bar on June 9, 2016, after he grabbed Mitchell by the throat and a man intervened, telling him to stop.
The next day, Mitchell was found dead in the apartment where they were staying. A deputy medical examiner determined she had been strangled and then compared the severity of her injuries to that of someone who had been hit with a baseball bat or had their neck stomped on, according to the statement.
Mitchell, 30, came to town with McLeod from Phoenix, where they were divorced. The mother of two worked as a property manager, Wentzel said. To her mother, Mitchell was the life of the party and the one who commanded attention whenever she walked into the room.
Mitchell met McLeod at work a few weeks ago—he came to her office to rent an apartment, her mother said—and they drove to San Diego. Wentzel said Mitchell was impressed by how much McLeod cared for his young son, and she did not appear to be aware of his previous domestic violence charges.
One of those alleged incidents occurred shortly before their trip, California court records show. He was charged in Riverside County in April of that year with battery to a spouse, an alleged crime that included allegations that he strangled his wife, according to a statement of facts.
McLeod has pleaded not guilty, Riverside County records show, and in court filings his attorneys in the Mitchell case said he has “a history of consensual sexual practices that included elements of the BDSM community such as bondage, spanking, slapping, choking and erotic asphyxiation, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness.”
However, there was no decision in this earlier case, and McLeod disappeared after Mitchell's death. On June 10, he allegedly drove Mitchell's car to San Diego International Airport, where he rented another car and headed to Mexico, according to prosecutors.
International search
The San Diego Police Department identified McLeod. as a person of interest in Mitchell's death almost immediately. A warrant for his arrest on suspicion of her murder was issued on June 13.
But McLeod was nowhere to be found. Eventually, Wentzel recalls, the Marshals Service stepped in and offered a reward. But she was frustrated by the government's failure to quickly pursue leads in foreign countries, she said. The U.S. embassy seemed less than enthusiastic about helping, she said, and she recalled a deputy marshal telling her they couldn't just “run in and grab this guy.”
“This is a different country,” she remembered him saying. “We need to get approval.”
The Marshals Service declined to comment. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
So Wentzel began the search herself. Although she worked as a police officer and detective several years ago in her native Guam, she said that experience did not prepare her for the years of social media investigation she was about to embark on.
One of her first steps was to create a poster featuring McLeod's image, along with a brief description of the murder and the amount of the reward – then $5,000, she said. She zeroed in on Belize, a place where she heard he might be, and spread the word to dozens of Facebook accounts – gyms and resorts, restaurants and a university, as seen in screenshots of the posts.
After posting the information to the buying and selling group, Wentzel recalls, responses started pouring in. Some of them were on the phone. Others came via WhatsApp or Facebook.
“Madam, I saw this man, I'm sure of it from his tattoos and face,” one message said, according to a screenshot.
“If he is here, he will be caught,” read another.
But then it wasn't him. And the messages continued. There was information that he was in Honduras, that he was in Guatemala. Some informants appeared to legitimately want to help, she said. The rest looked like scammers.
“One guy contacted me and said, 'OK, he's here,'” she recalls. “I know where he works. I have pictures. I have all this. So, you know, I need you to send me $1,000.”
According to Mike Wentzel, there were so many tips that processing them became a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week job for his wife. At times he thought about asking her to call back, but he never got around to it.
“This is her child,” he said. “How can I tell her to stop?”
But there were times when this thought occurred to her. Maintaining hope during the pandemic, when the steady flow of tips has dried up, has been especially difficult, she said.
Last tip
As this information meltdown drags on, Wentzel said, local and federal officials announced that McLeod had been added to the list of marshals of the 15 Most Wanted Fugitives. In the spring of 2021, they also announced that the reward for information leading to McLeod's arrest had increased to $50,000.
His last known location was in Guatemala in 2017, officials said.
Wentzel said she believes it was a tip related to the Central American country that ultimately led to McLeod's capture. Five years after he was spotted in Guatemala, she said, several informants told her they had seen McLeod at a hotel north of the country's border with El Salvador.
Wentzel watched a YouTube video from the hotel to see if she could recognize his face, she recalled, and posted a wanted poster on Facebook targeting accounts in the area. Wentzel said she set a 100-mile radius for the ad, meaning everyone in that area would see McLeod's face.
In the end, Wentzel said she learned from the Marshals Service that someone had seen one of her ads and shared a brochure with authorities that appeared to show McLeod. She said the brochure was from a Salvadoran English school near a Guatemalan hotel.
It was this image that prompted Wenzel to conclude: “This is him.”
Four days later, August 30, 2022, authorities announced that McLeod had been taken into custody. in Sonsonate, El Salvador, where he taught English. The next day he landed in San Diego..
Wentzel struggled with a tangle of emotions as McLeod's arraignment approached. She recalled thinking about the final moments of her daughter's life and running through a series of revenge fantasies in her head. But she didn't want to stew in hatred and bitterness. So she tried to focus on her daughter's children, whom she and her husband raised, as well as the other victims she was trying to help.
“Murder does the same thing to you—it makes you something you’re not if you allow it,” she said. “I couldn't imagine living my life like this. I wanted to be a grandmother, I just wanted to travel and have fun and live the rest of my life with my family. But it made me something else.”
