Fugitive arrested in N. Idaho
A fugitive sought in a Southern California torture attack that drew international attention was arrested Monday at a rural North Idaho home.
San Diego police believe Damian Maple, 21, beat an Australian tourist unconscious with a skateboard, then threw him into a burning fire pit on a San Diego beach in late February.
His alleged accomplice, 46-year-old Francisco “Cisco” Antonio Montoya, is still at large, but federal agents found Maple hiding under a bed about 8:45 a.m. Monday at a home in the 13000 block of East River Road, about 16 miles north of Priest River, according to the U.S Marshals Service.
Both face charges of aggravated mayhem, torture, aggravated assault with a weapon and battery with severe bodily injury, which could bring life sentences. Maple was in the Bonner County Jail on Monday evening awaiting extradition to California.
The two were featured on Saturday’s episode of “America’s Most Wanted,” a television show dedicated to capturing fugitives. Thousands of tips came in after the show aired, but authorities were already working on a tip about Maple hiding in North Idaho on Friday, said Tim McFarden, a supervising deputy U.S. Marshal in Boise.
Maple is not from North Idaho but is friends with a man who lives at the East River Road home, McFarden said.
The man’s girlfriend and her two young children were home at the time of Maple’s arrest, but federal agents don’t believe the woman knew Maple was a fugitive, McFarden said.
San Diego authorities believe the Feb. 27 beating of 26-year-old Robert Schneider was random, McFarden said. “America’s Most Wanted” cited San Diego police as saying Maple and Montoya are transients who were on drugs at the time of the attack, and that Schneider was traveling the world and had stopped in San Diego to visit friends.
Schneider suffered a fractured skull, broken hand, deep facial cuts and burns on his legs and body from the attack, according to federal agents. He was pulled from the fire pit by a witness and was in and out of a coma in the days after the attack, according to the TV show.
McFarden said the “viciousness” and randomness of the attack likely prompted the television show to air the case.
“I don’t know what ‘America’s Most Wanted’ uses for their criteria, but this one definitely caught their eye,” McFarden said.
Maple is the second fugitive featured on the TV show to be arrested in Idaho in the past year.
Last May, Joel Randu Escalante-Orosco was arrested in Idaho Falls for allegedly raping and murdering his sister-in-law in Mexico, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.