A fugitive that was wanted for the killing of a popular Jersey City teacher last year is now in police custody, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez announced.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Leiner Miranda Lopez, 28, of Jersey City, was previously charged with murder, hindering, failing to dispose of human remains in a manner prescribed by law, tampering with physical evidence, and desecrating/concealing human remains, Suarez said in a statement.
He was taken into custody at Newark Liberty International Airport and is being held at the Hudson County Correctional Facility pending his first court appearance.
Colombian authorities arrested Miranda Lopez on June 14th, 2023, pursuant to a U.S. provisional arrest request. On September 11, 2024, Miranda Lopez was subsequently extradited from Bogota, Colombia, to the United States.
Miranda Lopez and co-defendant Cesar Santana, 38, of Jersey City – her Hernandez’s estranged husband – were both indicted by a Grand Jury on Monday, May 15, 2023.
On Tuesday, February 7, 2023, the body of a woman – later identified as Luz Hernandez, 33, of Jersey – was recovered in a shallow grave in the area of Central Avenue and Third Street in Kearny. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Regional Medical Examiner’s Office determined the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head and compressions to the neck and the manner of death to be homicide. This matter is being investigated as an act of domestic violence.
Suarez credited the arrest to the Homicide Unit, U.S. Marshals Service, and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs and Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section’s Judicial Attaché’s Office in Bogota, Colombia, who worked with Colombian authorities to secure the arrest and extradition of Miranda Lopez.