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A man charged with killing his 2-year-old son in Raleigh in 1994 has been arrested in Haiti.Maxine Edmond Pardo, 44, was arrested Saturday by Haitian officers in Petionville. He is a native of Haiti who became a U.S. citizen.Authorities in Raleigh charged Pardo in 1996 with murder of the boy, who died in Raleigh in December 1994. Bryan Konig, commander of the U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force, said the child died of shaken baby syndrome.Court documents did not identify the child, but a spokeswoman with the N.C. Medical Examiners Office in Chapel Hill said his name was Nigel Brown. The cause of death on the autopsy report was "child battery by an unspecified relative and other maltreatment," Sharon Artis, a medical examiner's spokeswoman, said Wednesday.A federal affidavit filed Wednesday morning with a U.S. magistrate judge in Raleigh stated that Nigel was treated Dec. 15, 1994, at the emergency room at WakeMed Raleigh Campus and died the next day.Police obtained a warrant for Pardo's arrest more than a year after the child's death. But Pardo had already fled Raleigh, and investigators thought he might have gone to New York, Puerto Rico or Haiti, court records show.Konig said U.S. State Department officials helped find Pardo.Pardo was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; he became a naturalized U.S. citizen Feb. 15, 1989, court records show.The federal affidavit said he was issued a new Haitian passport in August 2002 under the name of Leopold Garcia Pardo.A photo of Pardo was shown Sunday to the mother of the dead child, and she identified him, according to the affidavit.The U.S. Marshals Service on Tuesday filed a separate criminal complaint against Pardo, charging him with willfully fleeing to avoid prosecution.Pardo remained in Haiti on Wednesday. Konig said he was not sure when authorities would return Pardo to Raleigh.(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
thomasi.mcdonald@newsobserver. com or (919) 829-4533
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.