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       The last thing ángela Carolina Acosta Flores told her mother was that she was entering a hotel room in Tijuana, Mexico, with a client and would be done in 30 minutes, according to court documents.

       But Acosta, a 20-year-old sex worker, never made it home on Jan. 24, 2022. Calls and texts from her mom went unanswered.

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       The next morning, Acosta’s bruised body was found in room 404. Mexican authorities said she was killed by a man they compared to Ted Bundy, the notorious American serial killer and rapist who targeted young women during the 1970s.

       On Thursday, U.S. Marshals arrested Bryant Rivera, 30, not far from downtown Los Angeles, in Downey, Calif., where he lives, and charged him with murder in the strangulation of Acosta, federal prosecutors announced. Baja California Attorney General Ricardo Iván Carpio Sánchez said officials have linked Rivera, a U.S. citizen, to the deaths of two more women in Tijuana.

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       Carpio said Rivera’s arrest was a result of coordination between U.S. and Mexican authorities. Mexico is now seeking his extradition, saying he faces three counts of femicide, a hate crime that involves the killing of women or girls, the Baja California Attorney General’s Office said in a news release.

       Reforzando los trabajos de inteligencia e investigación con autoridades de Estados Unidos, sostuve una reunión con integrantes del Departamento de Justicia, Buró Federal de Investigaciones (FBI), así como integrantes de los US Marshalls con resultados altamente positivos. Como ejemplo de ello el arresto en los Estados Unidos con fines extradición a nuestro país de Bryan “N”, quien es considerado como un asesino serial, por ello, ahora deberá enfrentar la justicia en Baja California, pues además cuenta con tres órdenes de aprehensión por feminicidio. Agradezco a nuestra gobernadora del estado Marina del Pilar Avila Olmeda por su apoyo al interceder con el gobierno de México y de los de estados unidos para unir los enlaces de contacto y fortalecer la coordinación que hizo posible este resultado.

       Posted by Ricardo Iván Carpio on Friday, July 7, 2023

       Rivera’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday night.

       Acosta was one of three women killed in Tijuana’s red-light district between September 2021 and February 2022, according to Mexican authorities.

       The cases had striking similarities, Carpio said: The victims were young sex workers who frequented one of the city’s popular strip clubs. The women were found strangled, with bruises on their chests and faces, he added.

       Like Bundy, the killer in Tijuana targeted vulnerable women, won their confidence and took them to other locations to brutally kill them, Carpio said during a news conference in December, before authorities had identified Rivera as a suspect.

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       “This subject has criminal tendencies associated with violent and psychopathic behavior,” Carpio told reporters. “His profile is very similar to someone who became very well-known decades ago: Ted Bundy.”

       From 1989: The living victims of Ted Bundy

       According to a report by Zeta, a Tijuana-based weekly magazine, the first victim was a 28-year-old sex worker named Karen. She had seen a client at a motel on Aug. 30, 2021, but didn’t return home. Her body was found inside a trash bin three days later, Zeta reported.

       Almost five months later, federal investigators say, Rivera met Acosta at the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club, where she was a dancer and a sex worker, according to a criminal complaint.

       Rivera and Acosta were recorded entering the Hotel Cascadas above the club at 10:11 p.m., according to the complaint. A minute later, Acosta sent her last text to her mother, the complaint states.

       Rivera was seen leaving the hotel room at 11:49 p.m., the complaint states. Surveillance footage allegedly showed Rivera walking back across the border 13 minutes later at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, which connects San Diego and Tijuana.

       No one else entered or left room 404 until 11:35 the next morning, court records state.

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       Acosta’s mother went to the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club looking for her daughter around midnight but was told Acosta was “probably still busy,” the woman told investigators. A hotel manager interviewed by Mexican authorities said they told Acosta’s mother that she could not get into the room her daughter was last seen entering because it had been rented until 1 p.m., according to court documents.

       By 3 a.m., Acosta’s boyfriend had also arrived at the club to look for her, court records state. He and Acosta’s mother stayed in the hotel’s lobby until noon, when an ambulance was called in because a guest had been found dead, according to the complaint.

       It was Acosta. A medical examiner later ruled she had died by strangulation.

       The company that owns the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club and Hotel Cascadas did not respond to a request for comment.

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       About three weeks later, Elizabeth Martínez Cigarroa, a 25-year-old sex worker, told her family she was going on a Valentine’s Day date with a man she met at the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club. They were heading to a hotel near the beach after eating at a Brazilian restaurant, her family told Punto Norte, a local outlet.

       On Feb. 17, 2022, Martínez’s body was found inside of her parked van, the outlet reported.

       The year Mexican women shook the country

       In Mexico, which is facing a deepening crisis of violence, women have protested the rising rate of femicides. On average, 11 femicides are committed each day, according to data released by the country’s national statistics agency in 2022, and more than 70 percent of women and girls over the age of 15 have experienced some form of violence. Baja California, where Tijuana is located, ranked as the state with the second-highest number of women killed in 2022, with 276 deaths, el Sol de Tijuana reported.

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       Carpio said his office would bring justice to the three women killed in Tijuana.

       “We will apply all the legal and technological instruments necessary to find those responsible for any crime, particularly those that are gender-based,” Carpio said in a news release in Spanish. “Which is why, with a firm hand, we will seek to bring all criminals to justice, even if they try to evade it by hiding in another country.”

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