SALT LAKE CITY – Homicide investigators with the Salt Lake City Police Department returned this week from Wisconsin, where they picked up a man suspected of killing another man in Utah in 2001.
According to information from the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office, 32-year-old Vincent J. Thomas is a suspect in the Sept. 28, 2001 murder of Leonel Perales.
A new team of investigators began working on the Perales cold case in June of 2012, and they secured a warrant in February to arrest Thomas. Thomas, however, was incarcerated at a federal institution in Wisconsin on unrelated charges.
After nine months of work by investigators, assisted by the Salt Lake County DA’s Office, Thomas was extradited to Utah to face a charge of criminal homicide, which is a first-degree felony.
