Manassas Journal Messenger | Triple murder suspect arraigned

Anastacio Sanchez-Miranda, the Dumfries-area man accused of killing three people and injuring two others in a Woodbridge house Sunday morning, was arraigned Monday morning in a Pennsylvania court and is awaiting an extradition hearing.

Prince William County police have an arrest warrant for Sanchez-Miranda on the murder charges, but authorities here are still waiting to find out if he will waive extradition.

Police in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., arrested Sanchez-Miranda around 2:30 p.m. Sunday, just an hour after Prince William police notified them that the 39-year-old man was believed to have fled more than 200 miles to his sister’s house in the northeastern Pennsylvania town.

He is being held there without bond on a fugitive from justice charge.

Police tracked Sanchez-Miranda through cell phone calls he made while traveling north on Interstate 83, said Wilkes-Barre police Lt. Steve Olshefski.

“[Prince William] police had information that was crucial to bringing this to a non-violent end,” Olshefski said.

Wilkes-Barre police surrounded the sister’s house and made contact with the people inside by phone, Olshefski said.

At one point, Sanchez-Miranda apparently tried to escape through a second-story window, according to Olshefski, but was ordered back inside and arrested without incident.

Prince William police have a murder warrant for Sanchez-Miranda and more felony charges are pending, said 1st Sgt. Kim Chinn, Prince William police spokeswoman.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert said that if Sanchez-Miranda is extradited, he will likely face capital murder charges.

Around 8:30 a.m. Sunday, Prince William police say Sanchez-Miranda, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, entered the house at the corner of Maurice Drive and Grandview Avenue in Woodbridge through an unlocked door and tried to shoot his estranged common-law wife, who had taken the couple’s three children to her sister’s house for a 2-year-old’s birthday party.

In the end, though, police say he shot and killed her sister, 24-year-old Rosario Europa, and her common-law husband, Juan Manuel Guevara, 28, and Gerardo Lopez-Garcia, 25, the man who stood between her and the gunman.

Two men, ages 18 and 30, who also lived in the house, were shot and injured. They were in stable condition as of Monday afternoon, Chinn said.

Twelve people were in the house at the time. Five were children, including Guevara and Europa’s 4-year-old son. None of the children was injured.

Prince William police seized a gun they believe to be the murder weapon from the house on Grandview Avenue, Chinn said. It has been sent to a forensics lab for testing.

They also searched the 1997 Ford Taurus that police said Miranda-Sanchez fled in and his apartment on Briarwood Drive just outside of Dumfries.

Police said the motive for the shooting stemmed from a domestic dispute.

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