By ANN PIERCEALL
Herald-Whig Staff Writer
HANNIBAL, Mo. -- The Hannibal Police Department had several contacts with Manuel Cazares since 2006, including arrests on charges of assault and burglary involving the woman he is now accused of killing.
But it wasn't until officers discovered the bodies of Amanda Thomas and Carl Patrick Epley in a Hannibal apartment Saturday morning that police checked the immigration status of Cazares and learned he was in the country illegally.
During a press conference Monday, Police Chief Lyndell Davis was asked if Cazares' citizenship was ever questioned.
"That I'm not sure of. I don't know that answer," Davis said. "It was just something that I went to the scene and went down to the station. I talked to the officers who had him in custody. I started observing his identification. I brought it to the staff officer to call immigration, and they said he's probably not legal.
"But then again, that's a secondary issue. The real issue is we have two victims of a homicide and an individual in custody."
Cazares, 32, is lodged in the Marion County Jail on $1 million bond. He has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder and armed criminal action in connection with the apparent stabbing deaths of Thomas, 27, a former girlfriend, and Epley, 25, of Monroe City.
Court records show Cazares was arrested for lack of a drivers license and other traffic violations beginning in 2006, the year he met Thomas. They had a son, Taybryn, who was born in August 2007.
The relationship soon began to deteriorate.
* On Dec. 22, 2007, Cazares was arrested for misdemeanor assault of Thomas.
* On Feb. 22, 2008, Cazares was arrested for first-degree burglary of Thomas' residence, which was pleaded down to property damage. Cazares received supervised probation.
* On Feb. 10 of this year, Thomas alleged that Cazares violated an order of protection by making harassing phone calls and text messages to her.
Thomas' mother, Jolene Schaubroeck, a native of Quincy, Ill., who now lives near Lincoln, Neb., said Cazares violated the order of protection by calling and texting Thomas last month, and that she and Thomas suspected Cazares of breaking into the apartment on Starlight Ridge.
Schaubroeck spoke to Hannibal police and to the Marion County prosecutor's office about her daughter's order of protection being violated. Cazares was picked up and questioned, she said, but he was not held or charged with breaking the order of protection.
Carl Rusnok, spokesman for the Central Region of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of the Department of Homeland Security, said research shows Cazares "entered the U.S. illegally."
But despite repeated brushes with the law over a three-year period, Cazares' status was never checked until Saturday.
Hannibal police Capt. Jim Hark said the department has no policy that requires a call to ICE, so no contact was made. He said the issue of immigration isn't "black and white," because officers have to be careful about questions that could lead to charges of racial profiling.
"Typically that (status) would not be checked because we do not have the authority to anything about someone's legal status," Hark said. "We do not have authority to hold that person if they have an immigration issue. We don't have the authority to deport, arrest or detain these people."
Rusnok concedes the authority of local officials is limited, but he emphasized ICE "routinely works local law enforcement agencies to help remove criminal aliens from streets." He said when local law enforcement contacts ICE about a suspected illegal immigrant, agency staff will check databases or conduct a phone interview to determine if the person is deportable.
If a person is determined to have entered the country illegally, Rusnok said a detainer with local law enforcement can be placed "fairly quickly." He said ICE prefers having two business days to take the person into custody.
"Obviously, the more serious the crime, the more likelihood we would have that (the individual) would be placed on the detainer," he said.
Davis was unsure if Cazares' status had ever popped up on anyone's radar screen.
"I can't answer that," he said. "They may have ran him before. It could have been a situation where he was legal at that point, but I really don't have those type of answers. We may really never know for sure. It's an issue you can find throughout the country. Law enforcement communities are battling with this issue."
-- apierceall@whig.com/(573) 221-5879
