Posted by John de Leon
A man who was once on the FBI's most-wanted list for the slaying of a pregnant Seattle woman and her baby in September 1982 was convicted today by a King County jury of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempt first-degree murder.
Robert Saquil Besabe had fled Washington state after the slayings and lived in California, where he was convicted of manslaughter in an unrelated case and deported to the Phillippines under an alias by California authorities in the 1990s.
For a quarter-century, the Philippine-born Besabe was on the FBI's most-wanted list, charged with killing Carolina Montoya of Seattle and her baby in a fit of anger. The break in the cold case came when Besabe walked into the U.S. Embassy in Manila on in September 2007 to seek a new U.S. passport, claiming his old one -- which expired three years after the slaying -- had been lost or stolen.
Besabe was subsequently arrested and ordered deported to Seattle to face charges in the slayings.
According to court records and newspaper reports at the time of the slaying, Besabe had just broken up with Montoya's friend, identified as Eleanor Velasco. Montoya, a pregnant model, was giving her friend a ride home when they stopped to give Besabe a ride, too.
Prosecutors in Seattle say Besabe pulled a gun, told Montoya to stop the car, shot her in the head and fired once at Velasco but missed her.
Doctors delivered Montoya's son by Caesarean section, but he died two days later. Montoya lingered in a coma for a month before dying.
The investigation dried up after Besabe vanished.
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