LOS ANGELES — U.S. authorities have arrested a California man accused of killing three women in the Mexican border city of Tijuana and crossing the border back and forth after each of the deaths that occurred over the course of nearly a year. from 2021.
According to U.S. court records, Bryant Rivera, 30, a resident of the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, was arrested July 6 on one count of femicide in the strangulation death of Angela Carolina Acosta Flores, whose body was found in a hotel room in Tijuana. on January 25, 2022.
Mexico plans to request her extradition to present evidence to add charges for the deaths of two more women in Tijuana, according to court documents. Ricardo Iván Carpio, Baja California state attorney general, said they will include new evidence found when Rivera was arrested in California. It was not immediately known if Rivera had retained an attorney.
Rivera appeared in federal court Monday, where U.S. Judge Karen L. Stevenson ordered him held at the U.S. Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles for the duration of his extradition proceedings, according to Ciaran McEvoy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office. Mexico has 60 days to submit a formal extradition request.
Acosta’s mother told Mexican authorities that her daughter worked next door as a dancer at a strip bar called the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club and occasionally as a sex worker. The mother told authorities that the last time she heard from her daughter was on January 24, 2022, when she sent her a text message saying she would take one of her clients to room 404 at Hotel Las Cascadas for about 30 minutes. 10:15 p.m., according to court records. At 10:45 pm, her mother said he began texting her daughter, but he never heard from her.
Court records show that Acosta’s boyfriend went to the club at 3 am and was told by a worker that Acosta had left with a client who was a “gringo” named Bryant Rivera. After her daughter’s body was found in room 404, Acosta’s mother traced her daughter’s cell phone to an address in Riverside, California.
Hotel security camera footage captured a man matching Rivera’s description and the victim entering Room 404, according to court records.
US Customs and Border Protection records show that Rivera entered the United States on foot through the San Ysidro Port of Entry shortly after midnight on January 25, 2022.
