Cops: High School Student Killed In Cold Blood

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Cops say Quetzalcoatl "Quetzal" Alba was killed by Erick Morales and Carlos Maldonado.

Quetzalcoatl "Quetzal" Alba, 15, was by all accounts a normal teenage boy: he loved soccer, music and girls.  On May 21, 2001, the soft-spoken Quetzal decided to cut class for the day and his pal, 16-year-old Erick Morales, was quick to join in the fun. The two boys met up with Morales' roommate, Reynaldo Maldanado, at a Daly City, Calif. apartment complex where local kids had fashioned a storage closet into their hangout spot.

It all seemed innocent enough, but by the end of the day, local authorities would be trying to figure out who stabbed Quetzal to death and why.

Daly City cops tell AMW that they found the 15-year-old boy face up in a pool of blood.  There was a broken baseball bat and a knife near his body.

Immediately, police thought that Morales and Maldanado would be able to tell them exactly what happened, but both denied knowing anything about the murder when authorities questioned them. Days later, cops say both Morales and Maldanado skipped town.

For six years, the investigation stalled until a tipster from Miami alerted cops that he knew where Maldanado was hiding.  When police made the arrest, they found a startling piece of evidence: a crime scene photo of Morales standing over his one-time friend's dead body.

A Break In The Case

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Cops say Erick Morales and Carlos Maldonando are responsible for the stabbing death of 15-year-old Quetzalcoatl "Quetzal" Alba.

With Maldanado in custody, police returned to the Daly City home where he and Morales had once lived, and cops made another discovery when they dug up the backyard. 

Detectives unearthed a large cannister that had the jacket that Morales was seen wearing in the crime scene photo.  Also in the cannister was a bloody glove, Qeutzal's cell phone, and a knife. 

In the early morning hours of October 12, 2009, New York State Troopers arrested Erick Morales on suspicion of DUI.  While he gave cops an alias, he was ultimately identified as the wanted murder suspect by fingerprint analysis. 

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Cops say Carlos Maldonado and Erick Morales were responsible for the stabbing death of 15-year-old Quetzalcoatl "Quetzal" Alba.

End Of The Line For Erick Morales

Carlos Billamarin came to Hampton Bays, N.Y. from California nearly four years ago. The 22-year-old had rented a room in a local house, and worked at the Windmill, a nearby restaurant.

But Carlos' friends and co-workers had no idea that he was, in fact, a man wanted for murdering a California teenager in 2001.

The man they didn't know was 25-year-old Erick Morales.

Cops tell AMW that New York State Troopers stopped and arrested Morales on a DUI suspicion just after 2 a.m. on October 12, 2009.

Morales didn't have any identification and gave police the name Carlos Billamarin.  However, once he was fingerprinted at the Suffolk County Jail, police knew that Billamarin was actually Morales.

The same day, Daly City, Calif. investigators flew to New York to interview Morales.

Over the course of the interview, Morales reportedly made multiple admissions about his participation in the murder of 15-year-old Quetzalcoatl Alba.

Morales told police that he flew to New York days after the 2001 murder and has tried to stay underground ever since.

Police tell AMW that if Morales keeps his word on waiving extradition, he could be back in California by late October to face first-degree murder charges.

Morales' alleged partner-in-crime, Carlos Maldonado, is currently on trial for the murder of Quetzalcoatl Alba.