From staff and wire reports
The fugitive who is accused of killing a 6-year-old Menlo Park girl in a hit-and-run accident fought his extradition from Guatemala for more than a year, but has now been returned to San Mateo County to face trial, police said.
Shannon Steven Fox, 33, was wanted in connection with the death of Lisa Xavier in a collision at the intersection of Willow Road and Bayfront Expressway on the afternoon of Nov. 12, 2009.
Fox was driving a Ford Mustang that was racing another car on northbound Bayfront Expressway when he struck a Toyota Camry carrying Lisa and her parents, Charles Suresh and Shiji Varghese, according to Menlo Park police.
Mother seriously injured
Lisa, who was a first-grader at Laurel Elementary School, died a day after the crash, and her mother suffered serious injuries but has since recovered. Her father was uninjured.
Investigators determined that Fox had gotten into the Honda Prelude he was racing and then fled, police said.
Officers tried to find Fox, who lived in East Palo Alto at the time, but learned that he had traveled to the Mexico border and eventually made his way to Central America.
In June 2010, the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office obtained an indictment against Fox for vehicular manslaughter, felony hit-and-run causing death, and participating in a speed contest.
Investigators worked with the FBI, who found that Fox was living in Central America and may have been helped by relatives there.
FBI tracks him down
In December 2016, the FBI was able to find Fox in Guatemala, and he was arrested there.
For more than a year after that, he and his lawyers fought attempts to extradite him back to the U.S., but he lost his final appeal in April to the Guatemalan Supreme Court, police said.
At about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday (Aug. 28), Fox landed at San Francisco International Airport and was taken into custody by San Mateo police. He has since been booked into San Mateo County Jail and appeared in court this morning (Aug. 30), according to jail records.
