Alfredo Ranzahuer (courtesy of Knox County Sheriff’s Dept.)
By J.J. KINDRED
J.Kindred@theknoxvillejournal.com
The Knox County Sheriff’s Office extradited a Mexican man, accused in a 2006 kidnapping and rape.
The suspect was identified as 30-year-old Alfredo Ranzahuer. A warrant was issued for his arrest on Jan. 27, 2006, but he had escaped to Mexico to avoid prosecution.
Ranzahuer allegedly climbed through a window, armed himself with a knife and raped a woman multiple times over the course of two and a half hours as her eight-year-old son slept in another room.
He threatened to kill the victim and her son if she didn’t comply.
Ranzahuer was found just south of Mexico City and arrested in April 2010 with the help of the U.S. Marshals Service. He was extradited on Dec. 30 and booked into the Knox County Detention Facility without bond.
Ranzahuer, who was an illegal alien at the time of the crime, was charged with aggravated rape, aggravated robbery, especially aggravated kidnapping and aggravated burglary.
Knox County Chief Deputy Eddie Biggs said Jan. 5 that this is believed to be the first time a suspect has been extradited from another country to Knox County.
“In my tenure — 38 years — I have never seen anything like this,” Biggs said. “In California and places like that, they do that often. I can’t say it’s never happened, but no one I know extradited someone out of the U.S.”
