Pennsylvania State Police. Photo by James Short.
Pennsylvania State Police at Skippack captured a fugitive on the run for 21 years on vehicular homicide charges last weekend in Berks County, reported The Reading Eagle.
Pedro Caldron Ortiz, 45, of the 100 block of Perry Street, Reading, is accused of fleeing the scene of a fatal hit-and-run car crash in Berks County on Sept. 8, 2001, according to court records, and eluding a ground and air search following the crash.
Details of how and where Ortiz was captured were not released by police, but he was, however, brought back to the attention of authorities for the same M.O. in Amity Township in December 2023, police said.
Ortiz fled a fatal crash on Route 419 in Tulpehocken Township on that September day in 2001, which killed a 15-year-old boy and injured two passengers, per the report. One year later, Tulpehocken police declared him a fugitive.
Ortiz remained under the radar for two decades, until an alleged nonfatal hit-and-run in Berks County, that is. Police said when Amity Township Police entered his name into the system, there was the 2001 warrant for vehicular homicide.
He remains at Berks County Prison in lieu of $100,000 bail, per court records, and will be tried on charges of vehicular homicide, criminal homicide, involuntary manslaughter, and hit-and-run.
Read more details here.
