Illegal immigrant, 19, killed co-worker he had ‘intimate’ relationship with near Virginia trail — tried to set her body on fire: police

Fairfax County, Virginia police arrested 19-year-old Alexis Antonio Cedillos-Campos, a Salvadoran national, on charges of second-degree murder in connection with the stabbing death of 42-year-old Carmen Lizet Puch. Puch, found by a jogger near Difficult Run Trail in Great Falls on Monday morning, had been stabbed multiple times and doused with gasoline; police said an attempt to set her body on fire failed. Police said Cedillos-Campos and Puch worked together at a restaurant in Herndon and had been in an intimate relationship, and that he took a fixed-blade knife, latex gloves and a water bottle from the restaurant before the killing. The Department of Homeland Security said Cedillos-Campos entered the U.S. illegally near El Paso, Texas in April 2024 and was released into the country during the Biden administration; he was arrested Wednesday in Maryland and awaits extradition to Virginia, where police say he has confessed to the killing.