Who is Miguel Ángel Urbano Vázquez? The Mexican "monster" who spread terror in the United States

The United States Justice Department has found Miguel Ángel Urbano Vázquez, a 50-year-old Mexican citizen, guilty of murdering and raping Sharon Van Gilder in Tacoma and committing three other rapes in Lincoln in 2002.

The criminal committed several of his sexual assaults in a workshop in the company of other individuals, and will receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole, according to U.S. media reports. He was convicted by a jury of first-degree aggravated murder, two counts of first-degree rape with a deadly weapon, and one count of second-degree rape.

Urbano Vázquez's modus operandi was similar in all his crimes. He targeted women addicted to alcohol or drugs, or those who were in a vulnerable situation, in order to abuse them.

Sharon Van Gilder, 39, was found dead in March 2002 in a ditch after being raped and murdered by Urbano Vázquez, whose DNA was found on the body. He also brutally abused three other women over a span of barely half a year. After being extradited to Mexico, the criminal finally faced U.S. justice to answer for his crimes, which had gone unsolved for many years.

Finally, an FBI investigation made it possible to prove that all the cases had been committed by the same serial rapist. It did so thanks to the comparison of DNA evidence that placed Urbano Vázquez at the crime scene and at the scenes of the three rapes. In 2023, he was arrested near Mexico City and placed at the disposal of the courts to be extradited to the United States.

"I feel that justice has been done and that he can no longer hurt anyone else," declared a relative of Van Gilder present in court.