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FBI Arrests Fugitive Wanted For Killing Boston Police Officer

September 6, 1988

BOSTON (AP) _ The FBI trailed one its 10 most wanted fugitives from Boston to Mexico before arresting him there for the 1987 slaying of a policeman.

Ted Jeffrey Otsuki, 36, was being extradited to Los Angeles late Monday after a yearlong search that culminated in his arrest Sunday in Guadalajara, Mexico, authorities said.

″Otsuki is a very very violent and dangerous fugitive,″ said James F. Ahearn, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston bureau. ″I characterized him ... as one of the most dangerous I had ever encountered.″

Otsuki, a Harlingen, Texas, native, was on parole after serving a prison sentence for robbing a Texas bank when he allegedly shot detective Roy J. Sergei, 42, and rookie officer Jorge Torres in Boston, said FBI Special Agent Neil Gallagher.

On Oct. 2, 1987, the two Boston police officers had stopped a suspect after they spotted him trying to climb a fence behind a building

While Otsuki was being taken into custody, police say, he reached inside his pocket and fired a 9mm pistol through his coat, striking Torres in the chest and left arm.

The suspect fled through an alley where he was confronted by Sergei and his partner. He fired again, striking Sergei in the chest, buttocks and right arm.

Boston police obtained a murder warrant for Otsuki after Sergei, who was recovering from his wounds, died of a heart attack Oct. 26. An autopsy concluded that Sergei’s heart attack resulted from an embolism directly related to his wounds.

Torres, 21 at the time of the shooting, recovered from his wounds.

During the search, investigators traced Otsuki to San Francisco, where police discovered two pipe bombs in a downtown storage area that Otsuki was renting, authorities said. The bombs were dismantled and no one was injured.

Besides the police killing, Otsuki faces charges of unlawful possession of explosives, felonious posession of a firearm, interstate flight to avoid prosecution and parole violations, the FBI said.