(Yuba-Sutter, CA) – In Sutter County Court yesterday the jury returned a verdict of guilty for Francisco Arellano in the murder of his wife, Blanca Duenas-Arellano in Yuba City on July 6th, 1999.

Blanca Duenas-Arellano had been stabbed 13 times with a kitchen knife and strangled with a phone cord wrapped around her neck, 4 times. She was found dead in her Queens Avenue apartment, and had a pair of her own underwear stuffed in her mouth.

After the murder, Francisco Arellano fled to Mexico with the couple’s two young children. He eluded capture until Yuba City Police detectives, seeking him for decades, tracked him and the children to Morales, Mexico in 2019 and had him extradited back to the united states a year-and-a-half ago.

Arellano is scheduled for sentencing April 26th, facing a maximum of 25 to life.