After decades of terror and evading justice, Miguel Angel Urbano-Vazquez, a serial rapist previously deported to Mexico, has been convicted of the aggravated first-degree murder of Sharon Van Gilder, a 39-year-old American mother whose body was discovered along a rural road in Washington state in March 2002. The conviction, secured nearly 25 years after Van Gilder’s brutal strangulation, brings an overwhelming sense of relief to her family, particularly her cousin Brenda Doty, who remembered Van Gilder not only as a beloved family member and hero who once saved her daughter’s life but also as a victim of horrific violence. Van Gilder was last seen leaving a Tacoma bar with Urbano-Vazquez and another man before her naked and beaten body was found hours later, marking the beginning of a series of violent sexual assaults in the area during 2002. Urbano-Vazquez, whose violent history is suspected to extend beyond U.S. soil, was apprehended abroad in 2023 and extradited in 2025, when DNA evidence linked him to Van Gilder’s murder and three other rape cases from the same year. The jury’s guilty verdict on November 3rd, following the courageous testimony of three survivors, marks a significant victory in a decades-long pursuit of accountability, with sentencing scheduled for December 11th, where he faces life in prison without parole, offering a beacon of hope for other cold case families.
Adapted from: U.S. News Today on Fox News
