$150k Bail for Alleged Drunk Driver in Fatal Hit-and-Run

BOSTON, March 16, 2017—An Everett man was arraigned today on charges he was driving drunk when he struck and killed 25-year-old Marco Salguero-Cruz in Chelsea and then fled the scene and the country, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

JOSE DANIEL AREVALO (D.O.B. 8/20/82) was arraigned today in Suffolk Superior Court on charges of motor vehicle homicide while operating under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of an accident causing death in connection with the June 4, 2016, hit-and-run crash that claimed Salguero-Cruz’s life.  At the request of Assistant District Attorney Michael Glennon, Clerk Magistrate Edward Curley set bail at $150,000 and ordered Arevalo to submit to GPS monitoring, home confinement, and surrender his passport in the event he is to be released on bail.  Arevalo has remained in custody since he was arrested in Dallas, Texas, on Dec. 1.

According to prosecutors, Salguero-Cruz was struck by a silver Toyota Camry on the night of June 4, 2016, in the area of Washington Street in Chelsea.  He died of his injuries at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the operator of the car fled the scene.

State Police detectives assigned to Conley’s office and Chelsea Police detectives recovered images from cameras in the area that captured the vehicle’s path of travel as it exited the parking lot of a Washington Street bar at a high rate of speed, and later as it fled from the area of the crash.  Images captured prior to the crash depict the vehicle with two functioning headlights; footage captured immediately after the crash shows the vehicle with only one headlight working. 

With the assistance of Conley’s Forensic Multimedia Lab and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Digital Evidence Lab, previously-deleted footage from a private security camera was recovered and enhanced. The resulting images depicting the driver allegedly involved in the crash were then released to the media and the public in November, and a person familiar with Arevalo contacted investigators after recognizing him in the images.  Investigators were also able to independently identify Arevalo through witness statements, social media, and Registry of Motor Vehicles records, prosecutors said.

Additional footage depicted Arevalo inside the Washington Street bar consuming four beers and six shots in approximately 2.5 hours leading up to the fatal crash, prosecutors said.

Arevalo allegedly fled to El Salvador two days after the crash but later returned to the United States and was taken into custody in Texas by Texas Rangers acting on a Massachusetts warrant obtained by Chelsea and State police.

Ilana Wixted is the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate.  Arevalo is represented by Kelly Cusack.  He returns to court April 3. 

 

 

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.