File image of Fort Lauderdale Police vehicles
A suspect known as "El Tigre" who's been on the run for nearly 16 years after a murder at a Fort Lauderdale sports bar was arrested during a Florida traffic stop, authorities said.
Jose Wilson Padilla-Padilla, 41, was taken into custody in Walton County Sunday.
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Sheriff's office officials said a deputy was on patrol when they witnessed a car cross a double yellow line to pass another vehicle.
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A traffic stop was conducted and authorities discovered the driver, Padilla-Padilla, had a warrant for first-degree murder out of Broward County.
Padilla-Padilla’s wife came to the scene to take possession of the car and said the two met in Mexico 12 years ago and had been living in Santa Rosa Beach less than a year, authorities said.
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Padilla-Padilla was booked into the Walton County Jail and is awaiting extradition to Broward.
According to a Fort Lauderdale Police report, Padilla-Padilla is a suspect in the Oct. 20, 2007 murder of 28-year-old Wilson Zelaya.
The report said the two men were at the International Bar on Southwest 16th Street when witnesses saw Padilla-Padilla fatally shot Zelaya.
Detectives said the victim was playing video games in the back corner of the bar when another patron confronted him and fired several rounds, hitting him multiple times.
Zelaya, of Plantation, died from his injuries.
A witness told police he saw a man he knew as "El Tigre" shoot Zelaya and flee the scene.
Another witness who was at the club with family and friends including "El Tigre" identified him as Wilson Padilla.
That witness said Zelaya was near the rear of the club telling people he was going to kill Padilla's brother, who had allegedly started dating Zelaya's girlfriend, the report said.
There were insults and heated words exchanged between the two before a physical confrontation that ended in the shooting, the witness said, according to the report.
In 2021, police got a tip from a witness and learned the shooting suspect's name was actually Jose Wilson Padilla-Padilla.
Detectives learned he had applied for a U.S. visa using a Honduran passport and had entered the U.S. illegally several times since the 2007 killing and has been arrested and deported each time, the report said.
During his arrests, Padilla-Padilla gave different variations of his name to Border Patrol agents, the report said.
But fingerprints from Immigration and Customs Enforcement matched a print taken from a pawn slip found at the shooting suspect's Fort Lauderdale home in 2007, the report said.
"Last night, @WCSOFL arrested a man known as 'El Tigre' who was wanted for a 2007 #FortLauderdale murder," Fort Lauderdale Police tweeted Monday. "Seems he fled the country following the incident but we’re grateful to now have closure for the victim’s family."
