Mexican officials revealed personal details about the Los Angeles County man accused of killing three sex workers in Tijuana, Mexico, and shared some of the evidence they believe connects him to the crimes.
Bryant Rivera, 30, was arrested Thursday morning at his parents' home in Downey, California. He was taken into custody with the expectation he would be extradited to Mexico, according to court documents. he faces three counts of femicide, a term used to describe the outbreak of violence against women in Mexico.
The Attorney General of Baja Mexico, Ricardo Carpio, during a news conference Friday, described Rivera as a serial killer who murdered three sex workers between September 2021 and February 2022. Rivera's father, however, described his son as caring and said he was blindsided by his son's arrest.
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"We depend on him. He takes us to our doctor's appointments, to the supermarket," Candido Rivera told NBC Los Angeles.
Carpio also said Rivera had an unusual relationship with his mother — he would often sleep with her in the same bed, Carpio said.
A criminal complaint unsealed Thursday detailed the timeline of one of three murders Rivera is being charged with. The victim was Ángela Carolina Acosta Flores.
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On Jan. 24, 2022, Rivera strangled Acosta to death in a room at the Las Cascadas Hotel connected to the Hong Kong Gentleman's Club in Zona Norte, a community in the northern part of the city, the complaint said.
Rivera took Acosta, who had been working at the bar for around five months as a dancer and sex worker, into a room at the hotel. Security cameras at the hotel spotted the two together before checking into the room, according to the complaint.
About an hour and a half after they entered the room, Rivera exited the room alone. Thirteen minutes later, cameras at the San Ysidro Port of Entry showed Rivera giving his documents to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer as he crossed back into the U.S. Acosta was found dead in the room around 11 hours later, according to the complaint.
Three employees at the bar described the man who went into the room with Acosta as having an acne-scarred face and a mole on the left side of his nose.
On Friday, Carpio said investigators searching Rivera's home after his arrest found a Las Cascadas Hotel receipt from the night of one of the killings.
Rivera was in U.S. custody as of Friday afternoon, and Carpio said Mexico would soon make a formal request for his extradition. Rivera faces three 65-year sentences, one for each alleged victim, according to Carpio.
"I’m going to wait and see what the evidence shows," Rivera's father said.
Authorities in the U.S. are investigating Rivera’s possible relationship with a woman who went missing in 2019, according to Carpio.
