Stanislaus prosecutors make arrest in 2003 Lacy Ferguson slaying

An arrest has been made in the 2003 slaying of Modesto resident Lacy Marie Ferguson, whose mother crusaded for years for justice in her daughter’s death.

David Aguilar, 44, formerly of Modesto, was booked at the Stanislaus County jail on suspicion of murder Thursday, according to a Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office news release issued Friday. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Superior Court on Tuesday.

Local investigators had developed enough evidence in the cold case to have an arrest warrant issued in 2014 for Aguilar, according to the release. Aguilar was found in Mexico, arrested by authorities there and held in prison, pending extradition proceedings.

District Attorney’s Office investigators Kirk Bunch and Steve Jacobson arrested Aguilar on Thursday after picking him up from an FBI agent who had escorted Aguilar from a Mexican prison, according to the release.

“I’ve got mixed emotions,” Boni Driskill, Ferguson’s mother who now lives in the Southwest, said late Friday afternoon.

Ferguson was 25 when she died on her daughter’s third birthday.

“She was the innocent victim of a drive-by. This feels like Part II to me, and I’ve waited for Part II for a very long time,” Driskill said. “Haleigh (Ferguson’s daughter) has her feelings, too. She’s ecstatic that he’s locked up. She’s very happy he’s in jail. She knows all the particulars (of how her mother died). She doesn’t remember her mom. She’s very mad at these people for that – mad that she doesn’t have what she should have.”

Ferguson and her boyfriend, John Ritchie, had just stepped outside a Quik Stop convenience store on Paradise Road on the evening of Aug. 24, 2003, when shots rang out from a car driving through the parking lot and toward another car. Ferguson, Ritchie and Adrian Vega, who had been in the other car, were all hit. Ferguson died from her injuries.

Driskill thanked District Attorney Birgit Fladager and Sheriff Adam Christianson for not giving up on the case.

“It’s a good thing we can finally take him (Aguilar) to trial and lay out all of the evidence,” District Attorney’s Office spokesman John Goold said. “It’s been far too long.”

Goold said extraditing someone can be time-consuming. He said prosecutors will not seek the death penalty. Goold said Mexico will not send someone back to the United States if they will face death.

Goold said he is not aware of any other arrests in this case and declined to say whether prosecutors had additional suspects.

Driskill did everything she could to keep the case in the public’s mind, and said she paid a price for it. “We suffered lots of retribution with the gangs and stuff,” she said. “We left there because of gangs, all of it.”

This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 5:22 PM with the headline "Stanislaus prosecutors make arrest in 2003 Lacy Ferguson slaying."