MASCOTTE, Fla.,None — A man wanted for murder in Lake County has been found, living in Highlands County under a new name for the last two decades, according to investigators.
Daniel Aguilera was wanted for killing a woman in Mascotte in 1992.
An informant who provided investigators with the information they needed to finally serve this arrest warrant.
Aguilera's own children don't even know their father's real name because investigators say the 42-year-old husband and father of four has been living under an assumed identity for nearly two decades.
Aguilera is the suspect in the Nov. 13, 1992, murder of Xochitil Patino. She was shot down in the front yard of her Mascotte residence, just feet from her husband.
She was a bystander struck down by a bullet aimed at a group of men who owed Aguilera's father money, but until recently, no one was looking for her accused killer.
"He fled the country is what they were told. At the time we believed Mexico," said Sgt. James Vachon of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Investigatiors thought Aguilera had been killed in Mexico.
But, a tip from a confidential informant to a Lake County deputy assigned to the United States Marshals Service Florida Regional Fugitive Taskforce reopened the case.
And early Tuesday, members of that task force approached Aguilera on his job at a tire shop in Avon Park, Fla., about two hours south of Mascotte.
He'd been living as Gerardo Aguilera Vargas so long that investigators said he didn't even remember his date of birth.
According to the agent, he was extremely remorseful, and implied that he was young at the time, did things that were a big mistake and started a new life.
WFTV
