By Nathan Hardin
nhardin@salisburypost.com
SALISBURY — San Francisco authorities want North Carolina’s governor to order a man accused of killing three people in 2008 back to California.
Wilfredo Ruano Reyes, 31, was arrested at a home on Airport Road Monday. He was charged with three counts of murder.
A local investigator said Reyes has been in Salisbury for a while. And he’s trying to stay, fighting extradition back to California to face the charges there.
Reyes, who authorities say is an MS-13 gang member, has been on the run since Tony Bologna, 48, and two sons, Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, were gunned down in their car in June 2008.
Bologna’s other son, Andrew, was also in the car. He was the only survivor.
A jury convicted Reyes’ accused accomplice, Edwin Ramos, 25, of three counts of murder and a single count of attempted murder on May 9.
During the trial, Ramos told the jury he didn’t pull the trigger of the gun that shot the Bolognas.
Reyes did, he said.
Prosecutors claimed the slayings were revenge for the death of a fellow MS-13 gang member.
On Tuesday, Reyes refused to waive extradition back to California at a hearing, said Rowan County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Chad Moose.
San Francisco authorities will have to submit a request to California Gov. Jerry Brown to ask Gov. Bev Perdue to issue a governor’s warrant for Reyes.
The warrant will permit the extradition.
Reyes and Jose Antonio Mejia were arrested after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent notified Rowan deputies that Reyes may be living in the Salisbury area.
Authorities say Mejia is also a member of the MS-13 gang.
Investigators started watching a home on Airport Road on Sunday. After about 25 hours of surveillance, deputies, a San Francisco homicide division detective and an ICE agent raided the home.
Deputies said Reyes attempted to flee through a window but was stopped by detectives.
Moose said it appeared Reyes has been staying in Salisbury for some time.
“He’s been here a while,” Moose said. “He had a bedroom set up inside the house we arrested him in.”
Moose said Reyes didn’t work here, but frequently traveled between Salisbury and South Carolina.
In a March 2012 press release from San Francisco Police, authorities said Reyes had last been seen in the Greenville-Spartanburg area in 2009.
Inside the Airport Road home, deputies said they found a .32 caliber handgun.
Authorities charged Mejia, an undocumented immigrant, with felony possession of cocaine, felony harboring a fugitive and possession of drug paraphernalia.
He remains in the Rowan County Detention Center under no bond and is awaiting processing by ICE.
Reyes is charged with three counts of murder.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact reporter Nathan Hardin at 704-797-4246.