Left: Yessenia Norman (GoFundMe). Right: Randal Basilio Santillan (Harrison County Adult Detention Center).
A 27-year-old Arizona man met a woman on a dating app, lured her to his apartment and stabbed her nearly 30 times before fleeing the state, according to authorities.
Local Fox affiliate KSAZ reports that 18-year-old Yessenia Norman left her home, a transitional facility for the Arizona Department of Child Safety, on Jan. 15. She told friends she was meeting someone she met on a dating app. A friend reported her missing four days later. On Jan. 28, cops discovered her body. She had been stabbed 27 times at an apartment in Tolleson, which is a suburb of Phoenix.
Her body was mutilated and covered in blankets and towels. Authorities have not disclosed a motive. The apartment where she was found was allegedly rented to Randal Basilio Santillan. Detectives obtained an arrest warrant. On Friday, cops arrested him in Biloxi, Mississippi, some 1,600 miles from the crime scene.
Authorities were able to track his vehicle using traffic cameras in New Mexico, Illinois and Missouri before he settled in Mississippi, per KSAZ.
He”s in the Harrison County Adult Detention Center while he awaits extradition back to Arizona. He will face charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping.
“I can’t imagine,” Norman’s mother, Jessica Calderon, told KSAZ. “I just can’t imagine. Who would do that to her? I just don’t understand.”
A GoFundMe account description called Norman, who went by Sisi, a “young woman of deep compassion and strength for everyone she knew.”
“She loved all of her friends’ children endlessly, treating them as if they were family too,” the account that is raising funds for her mom stated. “She was a very talented young woman who had a very bright future waiting for her. She recently signed up for community college and was very eager to start her adult life.”
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