Husband wanted in stabbing death of ex-wife is arrested

The man suspected of murdering his ex-wife last month in her South Seattle home was arrested by Seattle police at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Wednesday evening.

Homicide detectives, who had been in contact with Jose Angel Blanco and got him to voluntarily return to Seattle, met his plane and later booked him into the King County Jail shortly before 10 p.m. for investigation of murder.

"They got him to basically surrender," said police department spokeswoman Renee Witt.

She said police are not releasing additional information on where he was coming from or how the negotiations happened.

Police have said they believe Blanco fled to Mexico after allegedly stabbing his ex-wife to death Nov. 30. And Wednesday, a former co-worker says he may have paid for his getaway with money stolen that same day from the business where he worked at the airport.

According to the company, which hired Blanco three months ago to collect and deposit cash from high-tech pay phones, about $5,000 in cash was stolen from the machines on the afternoon of Nov. 30.

The theft was discovered the next day when the airport concessionaire also learned that Blanco had been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Noemi Lopez, 31, and was believed to be headed for Mexico.

Page Tanagi, a spokesman for the company who confirmed the theft on condition that his company not be named, said he suspects Blanco.

Blanco, 39, was among a very select few who had the keys to the machines and knew how to use them without raising suspicion, he said. Blanco failed to report to work the next day, and the keys were later found by police in his abandoned car.

"Taken all together, it seems pretty obvious," Tanagi said.

The theft was reported to Port of Seattle police.

According to Seattle police, Blanco sent a text message around 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 30 to his children warning them not to return to their Rainier Valley home, where they eventually found their mother, stabbed about 60 times.

Blanco's silver BMW was found Tuesday in Algona — with the phone vendor's keys in it — and police then broadcast information saying they now believed he was driving a silver 2004 Suzuki Verona. That vehicle was found Dec. 5 in Santa Ana, Calif., and Seattle police said they believed Blanco was in Mexico, where he has relatives.