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A serial rapist from Mexico who murdered an American woman more than two decades ago and terrorized other women in the United States has finally been brought to justice.
Miguel Angel Urbano-Vazquez, who was previously deported to Mexico before being extradited back to the U.S., was found guilty earlier this month of aggravated first-degree murder in the March 2002 rape and strangulation of 39-year-old Sharon Van Gilder in Washington state. Her body was discovered along a rural road in Pierce County, Washington.
Van Gilder’s cousin, Brenda Doty, told Fox News Digital the fact that her killer was finally convicted nearly 25 years later is an overwhelming relief.
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“I’d wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it,” Doty said. “She didn’t deserve that.”
Van Gilder, a mother of two, was very close with her family.
“We just had so much fun together, riding ponies and horses and playing in the barn,” Doty said.
Doty remembers her cousin not just as a wonderful friend, but as a hero who decades ago saved her own daughter from drowning in a lake during a family outing.
“[Sharon] jumped into the water, swam over there, dove underneath and pulled her up. She saved my daughter’s life,” Doty said. “
“My daughter was 8 years old, and she’s 40 now,” she said.
Van Gilder was last seen leaving a bar in Tacoma with the killer and another man in March 2002, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said.
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Hours later, her naked and badly beaten body was discovered on the side of a road in Spanaway, southeast of Tacoma. Investigators determined she had been strangled.
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Prosecutors said Van Gilder was the first victim in a series of violent sexual assaults that unfolded between March and October 2002.
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Urbano-Vazquez was deported to Mexico sometime after Van Gilder’s killing, the FBI Seattle said.
Knowing his history, Doty suspects the trail of violence is even longer.
“I’m sure [from the time] when he was in Mexico, there are more [victims],” she said.
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She went on to say, “He’s such a violent, violent person.”
The Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office said, “In 2012, DNA tests linked the 2002 rape and murder of Sharon Van Gilder to three other nearby rapes. Suspect Miguel Urbano-Vazquez was captured abroad in 2023 and extradited in 2025, when a DNA sample could be taken and compared to the 2002 samples.”
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A jury found Urbano-Vazquez guilty on Nov. 3. He will be sentenced on Dec. 11.
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In addition to murder, he was convicted of rape charges stemming from attacks on three other women in the Tacoma area during the same year, bringing an end to a decades-long effort to hold him accountable for the crimes.
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Doty praised the immense courage of those three survivors who took the stand against the killer.
“The gals that testified, they were so brave to come. Now this is 24 years ago, their stories were heartbreaking and they came in and put themselves in front of juries,” Doty said.
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She went on to say, “when each one left the courtroom, my cousin and I went out and hugged them and told them that we loved them. It wasn’t their fault. We thanked them because their testimonies were key in getting the guilty plea.”
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In Washington, the punishment for a charge of aggravated murder is life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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For Doty, the verdict is a victory not just for her family, but a beacon of hope for others waiting for answers.
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“So many people had been part of this and it was a win, and it feels good to have a win,” Doty said.
“If there anybody out there with a cold case, don’t give up,” she said.
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