Man who fled Colombia after murdering his wife now in US, Feds say

A Colombian man who murdered his wife has been hiding in the US – under a false name – since the 1990s, the FBI said.

William Hernando Usma Acosta, 61, has been on the run since 1994 when he fatally shot his wife and daughter when the younger woman tried to intervene in the deadly domestic assault in Medellin, the FBI announced this week.

Usma Acosta was arrested this week after he was found going by the name of Carlos Alberto Rendon with a new wife, who is a US citizen, and their son in Belmont, Massachusetts, authorities said.

He had gained permanent legal status in the United States through marriage and applied for naturalization in 2020 with a fake birth certificate, according to the FBI.

Acosta “needs to be brought to justice for what he did,” said Joseph Bonavolonta, the FBI’s Boston Division special agent.

“William Hernando Usma Acosta is a convicted cold-blooded killer who thought he could evade justice by entering the United States and creating a new identity so he can live under the radar,” Bonavolonta said in a statement.

“The Commonwealth of Massachusetts will not be a safe haven for those wanted in their homelands, and the FBI will continue to use our international partnerships to remove dangerous fugitives like him from our communities.”

Usma Acosta fled his home country shortly after the assassination of his wife Laura Rose Agudelo on June 19, 1994, but was convicted in absentia of murder and weapons possession with an international arrest warrant.

His original sentence was 45 years — but the sentence was reduced to 29-1/2 years due to a change in sentencing guidelines, the FBI said. According to officials, he was also beaten at 10 years of “restricted civil rights.”

Usma Acosta reportedly entered the United States in 1995 and was granted permanent resident status when he married in Massachusetts three years later.

Using his assumed name, Usma Acosta applied for US citizenship in 2020 and submitted the fake birth certificate and fingerprints that authorities eventually used to verify his true identity.

Belmont residents were shocked to learn of Usma Acosta’s troubling past after he was arrested on his way to work on Wednesday.

“He seems like a really nice guy, you know,” Michael Fraai told WCVB. “He would probably be the last person I would say had a violent past. I am totally at a loss. That’s the last thing I expected.”

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement now plans to turn him over to Colombian authorities to serve out his sentence.