The Violent Stories Behind FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives (2024)

The FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list was first established in 1950 as a way of promoting the capture of wanted criminals in the U.S.

As of October 2021, 525 criminals have appeared on the list, and people are removed when they are captured, die, or if the charges against them are dropped, and are replaced by another fugitive.

About 19 in every 20 of these fugitives have been captured or located, with 162 of the 490 found with the help of the public.

Here are the current 10 most wanted fugitives, according to the FBI.

Arnoldo Jiminez

Arnold Jiminez is wanted by the FBI for first degree murder and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, after allegedly killing his new bride a day after their wedding.

Jimenez, 39, allegedly stabbed his wife Estrella Carrera to death in his black four-door 2006 Maserati on May 12, 2012, the day after they got married.

He then allegedly dragged her body into the bathtub of her apartment in Burbank, Illinois, where her body was found on May 13 in the silver sequinned dress she had worn to her wedding reception.

Carrera, 26, was a mother-of-two, with one child from a previous relationship and a son with Jiminez. She told only a handful of people about her plans to get married.

The pair got married at Chicago's City Hall, celebrating with family and friends at a dinner before heading to a nightclub.

Carrera's sister alleged that the woman's family received a phone call from one of Jiminez's relatives on May 13, telling the Associated Press that he allegedly said he had left Carrera bleeding after a "bad fight".

A state warrant for Jiminez's arrest for first degree murder was issued on May 15, followed by a federal arrest warrant issued by the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, two days later when Jimenez was charged federally with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

The FBI believed Jiminez may have fled to Durango, Mexico, and say he may also frequent Reynosa in Tamaulipas.

They also say he should be considered armed and dangerous, and are offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to Jiminez's arrest.

Jiminez was added to the FBI's top 10 most wanted list in 2019.

Jason Derek Brown

On November 29 2004, 24-year-old armoured car guard Robert Keith Palomares was carrying the weekend deposits outside a Phoenix AMC theatre when a hooded gunman shot him with a .45-caliber semi-automatic Glock, with five out of six bullets striking Palomares in the head.

The gunman, who fled the scene on bicycle, took with him a moneybag containing $56,000 in cash, and Palomares was later pronounced dead.

Fingerprints found on the bicycle when it was recovered linked Jason Derek Brown, an entrepreneur who owned a toy company and an advertising business, to the crime.

An arrest warrant was issued for Brown on December 4 charging him with first degree murder and armed robbery, and he was later charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

Brown, who has a love of expensive cars and boats, is thought to have been in financial difficulty.

Since late 2004, there have been alleged sightings of Brown in Nevada, Arizona and Salt Lake City in Utah, where Brown had previously lived and worked as a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints.

The FBI has received more leads on Brown than anybody else on their most wanted fugitive list due to his "surfer dude" image. Bizarrely, one of Sean Penn's body doubles was once mistaken for Brown due to his resemblance to the actor.

Brown, now 52, is considered to be "armed and extremely dangerous," and the FBI has offered a reward of up to $200,000 for any information leading to his arrest.

Alexis Flores

Alexis Flores is alleged to have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of a 5-year-old girl in Philadelphia.

On August 3, 2000, five days after she was reported missing, Iriana DeJesus was found in a basem*nt, having been sexually assaulted, strangled and wrapped in a trash bag.

A t-shirt found near her with her blood on it was identified by a building resident as one he had loaned to a man named "Carlos," a homeless drifter who had been given shelter, clothing and work by a resident of the building in Hunting Park.

Flores, an illegal immigrant, was arrested on a number of occasions over the next few years, including for shoplifting and possession of a forgery device, and was deported to Honduras following a 60 day incarceration in 2005.

Two years later, Flores's DNA sample was found to match DNA at the scene of the Philadelphia crime, targeting Flores as the main suspect "Carlos".

On March 22, 2007, an arrest warrant was issued charging Flores with murder and kidnapping, while a federal arrest warrant charged him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

Flores, now 46, is believed to either be in Honduras or the United States and the FBI has offered a reward of $100,000 for information leading directly to Flores's arrest.

Jose Rodolfo Villarreal-Hernandez

Cartel boss Villareal-Hernandez, also known as El Gato, was added to the top-10 most wanted fugitives list in October 2020, for his alleged involvement in the murder of Juan Jesús Guerrero Chapa, which was carried out on May 22, 2013, in Southlake, Texas.

Villareal-Hernandez allegedly blamed Guerrero, who had ties with the Gulf Cartel, for the murder of his father, who was killed by the Gulf Cartel, the rivals of Villareal-Hernandez's Beltrán-Leyva Cartel.

On May 22, 2013, Guerrero, who was working as a U.S. informant in Southlake, was shot in his car by an assassin who had driven up behind Guerrero and his wife's car in a shopping centre parking lot.

While three men allegedly connected to the assassination plot have been arrested, the two assassins and Villareal-Hernandez, who is accused of orchestrating the murder, are still at large.

A federal warrant for interstate stalking and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire was issued for Villareal-Hernandez, 43, in June 2018, and the United States Department of State's Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program has offered a reward for up to $1 million for information leading directly to his arrest.

Octaviano Juarez-Corro

Octaviano Juarez-Corro was added to the list in September 2021, and he is wanted for the murders of two people who were shot execution style at South Shore Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 29, 2006.

Authorities allege that Juarez-Corro shot five people - two fatally - at a crowded Memorial Day picnic, where his estranged wife and their three-year-old daughter had been.

Juarez-Corro allegedly got agitated when his wife, saying he was not allowed to see his daughter that day, told him to leave, and allegedly pulled out a gun.

He allegedly lined up four people and shot them "execution style" before fleeing the park.

The 47-year-old has ties to Mexico, Wisconsin and California, and the FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information directly leading to his arrest.

Eugene Palmer

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Eugene Palmer was added to the list in May 2019 for allegedly shooting and killing his daughter-in-law on September 24, 2012, in Stony Point, New York.

Palmer's son John was married to Tammy Palmer, with the couple and their two children living in a property owned by Eugene, who lived next door.

The couple's relationship deteriorated and they began to see other people, with Tammy later filing for a restraining order from her estranged husband, threatening to file for divorce and to sue for her father-in-law's land.

On September 24 2012, Tammy was ambushed as she returned to her home after dropping her children to the school bus stop, and was shot in the chest after being struck in the arm by the first of three shots.

Eugene Palmer was believed to have been the shooter and fled the scene.

Palmer, 73, has been missing for nine years and while some family members believed he died in Harriman State Park, where his pickup truck was found, no body has ever been found, and arrest warrants for murder and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution were issued in 2013.

Palmer is known to be an experienced hunter and outdoorsman, and the FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information directly leading to his arrest and conviction.

In 2014, Tammy's children were awarded $2.15 million, the estimated value of Palmer's estate, by a New York Supreme Court judge who determined that Palmer killed their mother.

Rafael Caro-Quintero

The United States Department of State's Narcotics Rewards Program is offering up to $20 million for any information directly leading to the arrest and conviction of Mexican cartel leader Rafael Caro-Quintero, who is wanted for his alleged involvement in the murder of a DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) special agent in 1985.

This reward is the highest bounty for all fugitives currently on the list.

Caro-Quintero is accused to have been involved in the murder of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena Salazar, who said to have been responsible for leading authorities to a ranch which was raided and led to 10,000 tonnes of marijuana worth around $160 million being burned.

Camarena and his pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar were kidnapped in Guadalajara on February 7, 1985, and were taken to a residence owned by Caro-Quintero, where they were tortured and murdered.

Caro-Quintero was arrested on April 4 and extradited from Costa Rica to Mexico to face charges related to Camarena's murder, and served 28 years in prison. However, in August 2013, a tribunal ordered his immediate release, ruling that Caro-Quintero was tried improperly in a federal courtroom for crimes that should have been treated at a state level.

Days later, an arrest warrant was issued in Mexico for Caro-Quintero and he has not been seen in public since, although he has given two interviews to the press.

Caro-Quintero is wanted for violent crimes in aid of racketeering, conspiracy to commit violent crimes in aid of racketeering, conspiracy to kidnap a federal agent, kidnapping of a federal agent, felony murder of a federal agent, aiding and abetting, and accessory after the fact.

Bhadreshkumar Chetanbhai Patel

Bhadreshkumar Chetanbhai Patel was added to the list in 2017, and is accused of brutally murdering his wife at a donut shop in Hanover, Maryland in April 2015.

Patel was 26 when on April 12, 2015, he and his wife Palak Patel were working a night shift at a branch of Dunkin' Donuts owned by Patel's relative.

At around 9.30pm, surveillance footage showed the couple walking into the kitchen together, with Patel emerging moments later without his wife, turning off an oven and leaving the store.

Later that night, the body of Palak, then 21, was found, having been beaten to death and stabbed multiple times with a large kitchen knife.

Moments before Palak's murder, she spoke to her family on the phone about wanting to return to India, which Patel is believed to have overheard; his wife's desire to return to India is cited by the police as the reason for her murder.

Patel allegedly returned to his nearby apartment on foot to retrieve some personal items, got a cab to a hotel near Newark airport, checked out the following morning, and took a hotel shuttle to Newark Penn Station. He has not been seen since.

A warrant was issued on April 13 charging Patel with first degree murder, second degree murder, first degree assault, second degree assault, and dangerous weapon with intent to injure, while a federal arrest warrant was later issued charging him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

The FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to Patel's arrest.

Alejandro Rosales Castillo

Alejandro Rosales Castillo is wanted for allegedly murdering his former girlfriend in 2016.

Castillo was 17 years old when he worked at a Showmars restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Truc Quan "Sandy" Ly Le, 23, with the colleagues briefly dating at some point.

Le also had loaned money to Castillo - who went on to date co-worker Ahmia Feaster, 19, - which he had not paid back.

On August 9, 2015, Le agreed to meet Castillo at a QuikTrip when he texted her to say he wanted to repay her the money she had loaned him.

Le was last seen alive at the QuikTrip, where she had met Castillo, who was taken to the meeting by Feaster in her Dodge Caliber.

Authorities believe that instead of repaying her, Castillo forced Le to empty her bank account at an ATM before allegedly driving Le to a wooded area in Cabarrus County where she was shot once in the head and dumped in a ravine.

Castillo and Feaster fled the scene in Le's Toyota Carolla, which was found in a bus shelter in Phoenix, and surveillance images later captured images of Castillo crossing the border into Mexico. He has not been seen since.

Feaster handed herself into authorities in Aguascalientes, Mexico, on October 20 2016 and was extradited to the U.S to face charges of accessory after the fact of felony murder and larceny of a motor vehicle.

Castillo faces charges of murder and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, and a reward of $100,000 is offered for information leading to his arrest.

Robert William Fisher

Robert William Fisher is wanted by the FBI for allegedly killing his wife and two children and then blowing up the house they lived in in Scottsdale, Arizona, in April 2001.

Fisher, a former firefighter and veteran of the Navy, was described as displaying cruel and controlling conduct, as well as violent behaviour, towards his wife Mary Fisher and their two kids Bobby and Brittney.

Family members and friends recalled Fisher throwing his kids off a boat to teach them how to swim, turning a hose on his wife after she "spoke out of turn", controlling what went on the walls of their house, and shooting a stray pit bull.

On April 9 2001, a loud argument was heard at around 10.30pm at the Fisher home by a neighbour, and at 8.42am the following day, the house exploded, with the gas line from the back of the house's furnace having been pulled and later ignited with a candle.

Mary Fisher, 38, was found in the house having been shot in the head, with Brittney, 12, and Bobby, 10, having had their throats slashed.

Authorities theorised that Mary wanted a divorce from her husband, and Fisher didn't want their children to go through that, having experienced his own parents' turbulent divorce as a teenager.

Mary's Toyota 4Runner was found on April 20 in Tonto National Forest with their family dog outside the car, and on July 19, a state warrant was issued in Phoenix, charging Fisher with three conts of first degree murder and one count of arson.

He was later charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, and was added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List in 2002.

A $100,000 reward has been offered for any information leading directly to the arrest of Fisher, who is known to be an avid outdoorsman and a keen tobacco chewer.