Fugitive Ex-Priest Jumps To Death

A former priest who fled to Mexico to escape U.S. sex abuse charges jumped to his death from a balcony after police cornered him at a hotel, authorities said Monday.

Siegfried F. Widera was accused of 42 counts of child molestation in California and Wisconsin.

As police surrounded the beachside hotel and moved in, the 62-year-old fugitive ran to the second-story balcony of his room and jumped, according to the U.S. Marshals Service in Milwaukee and authorities in Mexico.

He died of head injuries on the way to a hospital, said Marta Gutierrez, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office. Authorities said they didn't know why he jumped.

Gutierrez said Mexican authorities ordered his arrest at the request of their U.S. counterparts. Mexico had planned to extradite the fugitive priest to the United States after his arrest Sunday, she said.

Police said it was unclear when Widera arrived in Mazatlan, 530 miles northwest of Mexico City on the Pacific coast, but that he probably came here from Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.

The manhunt for Widera had expanded from Milwaukee and California's Orange County to Tucson, Ariz., El Paso, and the service's liaison office in Mexico City, said U.S. Marshal William Kruziki.

"His death in Mexico is a sad ending to a tremendously complicated and sad life," Kruziki said.

Widera was ordained a Catholic priest in 1967. Six years later he was convicted of sexual misconduct with an adolescent boy in the Milwaukee area and sentenced to three years' probation.

In 1976, he was moved from Milwaukee to Orange County.

Widera allegedly continued to molest boys until he was removed from the ministry in 1985 following accusations of sexual abuse.

Authorities said the California molestations took place when Widera was a priest at St. Justin Martyr Church in Anaheim and St. Martin de Porres Church in Yorba Linda.

A 25-year-old truck driver filed a civil suit in April 2002 accusing Widera of abuse and claiming the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and the Diocese of Orange covered up molestations.

The next month, Widera was charged in Wisconsin with four counts of enticing a child and five counts of indecent behavior with a child, but authorities could not find him.

In October, Orange County prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest on 33 counts of child molestation.

The Marshals Service said it had deputies on the way to Mazatlan, but they had not arrived at the time Widera died. The U.S. State Department's American Services Division was coordinating the return of Widera's body to the United States.