Man extradited from Mexico to Vancouver in 1996 murder of Muriel Lindsay

Police in Vancouver say a Mexican national has been charged with second-degree murder in a cold case dating back three decades.

Vancouver police say 68-year-old Juan Manuel Rueda Salud was escorted by officers from Mexico to Vancouver on Wednesday where he remains in custody.

Rueda Salud is accused of killing 40-year-old Muriel Lindsay, who was found in her home beaten to death on Feb. 16, 1996. 

Police say Rueda Salud lived in the same building as Lindsay at the time of her death, and he had left Canada for Mexico about a month after the murder.

Insp. Ryan Smith, who spent 12 years on the case, says police had identified the accused as a person-of-interest and eventually found him in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2015.

Rueda Salud was formally charged in 2024 and arrested in January 2025 in Mexico where he appealed the extradition order until he was eligible to be extradited on July 15.

Smith says the Mexican process presented “significant challenges” in the arrest, and he thanked U.S. and Mexican law enforcement authorities for aiding in the investigation.

“Rueda Salud is a Mexican citizen, and just until recently, we didn’t actually have an extradition process with Mexico,” Smith said at a news conference in Vancouver announcing the murder case on Thursday. “So, locating Rueda Salud and then extraditing Rueda Salud obviously created many challenges.”

Smith declined to discuss specifics of the case as it’s now before the courts.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 13, 2026.

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