A 39-year-old man accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s new partner in 2017 has been extradited from Mexico and charged with murder following a years-long investigation.

Humberto Rodriguez Martinez is accused of fatally stabbing 32-year-old Daniel Reyes in Anaheim, California, nine years ago, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said Friday. But prosecutors said he fled to Mexico following Reyes’ death, leading to a years-long search that ended in 2024.

Martinez now faces “one felony count of murder, one felony enhancement of special circumstance lying in wait, and one felony enhancement of personal use of a weapon, a knife,” the district attorney’s office said.

“This arrest does not undo the pain the victim’s family has endured, but it reinforces our commitment and promise to our community: we will never stop working until justice is served,” Anaheim Police Chief Manny Cid said in a statement.

Martinez pleaded not guilty Tuesday and is being held without bail. The Independent has contacted the defense attorneys listed on Martinez’s public court records for comment.

Prosecutors said the incident unfolded on October 17, 2017, when Martinez went to his ex-girlfriend’s apartment to watch their two children while she went to work. Martinez was accompanied by his friend, Adan Zapot-Leyva, according to prosecutors.

Martinez and the woman had broken up several months earlier, but were still co-parenting, prosecutors said.

The two men left the apartment around 8:30 p.m., when the woman arrived back home, investigators said. Reyes, who was dating Martinez’s ex-girlfriend at the time, then came to the apartment about 30 minutes later.

Early the following morning, Anaheim police were called to a nearby intersection, where witnesses claimed two men were chasing Reyes, and one of them was stabbing him, prosecutors said. Responding officers found Reyes dead with multiple stab wounds.

Prosecutors said Martinez fled to Mexico soon afterward, while Zapot-Leyva was arrested two days later. Zapot-Leyva pleaded guilty to one felony count of second-degree murder in 2023 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, according to the district attorney’s office.

A $2 million warrant was out for Martinez’s arrest, and in 2024, he was located by Mexican authorities and arrested “at the request of the United States,” prosecutors said. He was extradited to California on December 4, 2025.

Martinez is a Mexican citizen who was in the U.S. “illegally at the time of the murder,” prosecutors said.

“The pursuit of justice will never be derailed by time or distance,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement. “The long arm of Orange County law enforcement reaches to every corner of the earth to ensure the full weight of the law is felt by those who commit the most heinous acts of violence against other human beings.”