Josephine Wentzel Hunted Her Daughter’s Killer for Years

Josephine Wentzel Hunted Her Daughter’s Killer Across International Borders

The Grandmother Who Wouldn’t Quit: How One Mother’s Six-Year Hunt Finally Captured Her Daughter’s Killer

In the annals of cold case investigations, few stories match the determination and grit displayed by Josephine Wentzel, a 67-year-old grandmother who transformed personal tragedy into an unrelenting quest for justice. Her six-year international manhunt for the man accused of murdering her daughter would span continents, involve countless dead ends, and ultimately lead to the capture of one of America’s most wanted fugitives.

A Mother’s Worst Nightmare

June 10, 2016, began like any other day for Josephine Wentzel, who was preparing to embrace retirement as an RV-traveling snowbird with her husband of nearly three decades. That illusion of normalcy shattered when she received the call every parent dreads: her 30-year-old daughter, Krystal Mitchell, had been found dead in a San Diego apartment.

Krystal, a divorced mother of two who worked as a property manager in Phoenix, had traveled to San Diego with Raymond McLeod, a 42-year-old former U.S. Marine she’d met just weeks earlier when he came to rent an apartment. What began as a romantic getaway ended in tragedy when Krystal was discovered strangled to death.

The brutality of the crime was staggering. According to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, the deputy medical examiner determined that Krystal’s injuries were comparable to someone struck with a baseball bat or having their neck stomped on. This wasn’t just murder—it was an execution.

The Fugitive Vanishes

Almost immediately, San Diego police identified McLeod as a person of interest. By June 13, 2016, an arrest warrant for first-degree murder had been filed. But McLeod had already vanished, allegedly driving Krystal’s car to San Diego International Airport, renting another vehicle, and heading south to Mexico.

What authorities would later discover was that McLeod’s violent tendencies weren’t isolated to this single incident. Court records revealed he had been charged in April 2016—just two months before Krystal’s death—with inflicting corporal injury on a spouse in Riverside County, California. The alleged crime involved accusations that he had strangled his wife.

A Detective’s Instinct Awakens

Despite having worked as a police officer and detective in her native Guam decades earlier, nothing had prepared Wentzel for what would become a 24/7 obsession. Frustrated by what she perceived as slow international cooperation and bureaucratic delays, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

“I didn’t picture living my life out like this,” Wentzel later reflected. “I wanted to be a grandma and I just wanted to travel and have fun and live the rest of my life out with my family. But it made me something else.”

Her first move was creating a “wanted” poster featuring McLeod’s photographs, details about the murder, and the reward amount—initially $5,000. She focused her efforts on Belize, following leads that McLeod might be hiding there, and systematically circulated the information across dozens of Facebook accounts, targeting gyms, resorts, restaurants, and even a university.

The Digital Dragnet

What followed was an extraordinary display of crowdsourced investigation. Tips began flooding in through phone calls, WhatsApp messages, and Facebook posts. Some were promising: “Madam I saw this man I am sure of it from his tattoos and his face,” read one message. Others were clearly fraudulent, with would-be informants demanding money for information.

The hunt became all-consuming. Wentzel’s husband, Mike, watched as his wife became consumed by the search, fielding tips at all hours. “This is her child,” he explained. “How can I tell her to stop?”

The COVID-19 pandemic proved particularly challenging, as the steady flow of tips dried up and international travel became nearly impossible. But Wentzel persisted, even as the emotional toll mounted and false leads multiplied.

Breakthrough in Central America

The turning point came in spring 2021 when the U.S. Marshals Service added McLeod to their prestigious “15 Most Wanted” list and increased the reward to $50,000. His last known location had been Guatemala in 2017—four years earlier.

Undeterred by the time gap, Wentzel focused her efforts on Central America. Multiple tipsters reported seeing McLeod at a hotel just north of Guatemala’s border with El Salvador. Wentzel surveyed YouTube videos from the hotel, posted targeted Facebook ads within a 100-mile radius, and continued her digital campaign.

Her persistence paid off when someone spotted one of her ads and shared a brochure with authorities from a Salvadoran English school. The brochure appeared to show McLeod—now going by a different name and working as an English teacher.

The Final Capture

On August 26, 2022, Wentzel received a message containing a recent photograph that she instantly recognized as McLeod. Four days later, on August 30, 2022, U.S. Marshals announced that Raymond McLeod had been captured in Sonsonate, El Salvador, where he had been teaching English under an assumed identity.

McLeod was extradited to San Diego, where he now faces trial for first-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty, with his attorneys arguing that Krystal’s death resulted from “rough, consensual sex gone wrong”—a characterization that Wentzel and prosecutors strongly dispute.

A Legacy Beyond Justice

Today, Wentzel’s relentless pursuit of justice has evolved into something larger than herself. She has authored two books, “The Chase” and “The Capture,” chronicling her experience. Through her nonprofit organization, Angels of Justice, she has helped other grieving families navigate the complex world of cold case investigations.

Her work has assisted in numerous other cases, including the disappearance of Maya Millete, and she has launched a campaign urging the White House to declare the country’s massive backlog of unsolved murders as a national emergency.

“Murder does this to you—it makes you somebody you’re not, if you allow it,” Wentzel observed. But rather than allowing bitterness to consume her, she has channeled her pain into purpose, helping raise Krystal’s two children while supporting other families trapped in similar nightmares.

The Unfinished Story

As McLeod awaits his preliminary hearing in March, Wentzel’s work continues. Her transformation from retired grandmother to internationally recognized cold case advocate serves as testament to a mother’s love and a detective’s determination.

The case that began with a mother’s grief has become a blueprint for how ordinary citizens can leverage digital tools, social media, and sheer determination to pursue justice when traditional systems move too slowly. Josephine Wentzel didn’t just capture her daughter’s alleged killer—she created a new model for cold case investigation that continues to help families seeking closure.

In the end, her six-year hunt for Raymond McLeod proves that sometimes the most effective investigators aren’t those with badges and official titles, but mothers who refuse to give up on their children—even when everyone else might have moved on.