The United States on Wednesday handed over a California man to El Salvador to face charges of aggravated feminicide and imperfect homicide, the Department of Justice said Thursday. The department said it is the first time the United States has surrendered a U.S. national to face justice for crimes committed in El Salvador.

Michael Alejandro Castillo Murga, 27, of Beaumont in Riverside County, is a dual U.S.-Salvadoran citizen. He is charged by Salvadoran authorities in the 2019 death of a woman. The charges are allegations, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

According to El Salvador’s extradition request, Salvadoran authorities found a woman’s body near a highway on Feb. 1, 2019. Three days later, law enforcement learned that a boy under the age of two had been found nearby. Authorities later identified him as the son of the woman and Castillo Murga.

The Justice Department said farm workers found the boy about four days after the killing, unsure whether he was alive. Medical personnel determined he was severely dehydrated and starving and showed signs of child abuse. He also had cuts on his face and insect bites, and authorities concluded the conditions of the rugged area put his life at risk.

Salvadoran authorities said Castillo Murga and the woman began a relationship in 2014 and had a son in 2017. On the evening of Jan. 31, 2019, he picked up the woman and the boy from her mother’s house, ostensibly to live together as a family. Salvadoran law enforcement believes he then killed her and left the child at the site.

An autopsy found the woman died of a massive hemorrhage from cuts to the veins in her neck and other wounds, according to the department. A plastic knife was found at the scene. Authorities determined his cellphone was in the area at the time of her death, and two witnesses on the highway saw a tall, thin person attacking a woman in the back seat of a gray vehicle.

The department said Salvadoran authorities also learned that Castillo Murga, his girlfriend, his grandmother and a lawyer tried to conceal the death and the abandonment. The grandmother and lawyer instructed two people to wash blood from his car, but they could not remove all of it. On or about Feb. 2, 2019, he allegedly left El Salvador for Guatemala with the help of his grandmother and lawyer, and later entered the United States.

The U.S. Marshals Service arrested Castillo Murga in October 2024 after El Salvador submitted its request, and he had been in U.S. custody since. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym certified his extradition on July 28, 2025. U.S. District Judge John W. Holcomb denied his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a challenge to the legality of his detention, on Nov. 5, 2025.

The Secretary of State then issued a warrant ordering his surrender. Holcomb denied a request to stay the extradition on Sept. 24, 2026. The Marshals Service for the Central District of California transported him and transferred him to Salvadoran custody.