A 68-year-old Mexican citizen has been charged with the 1996 murder of a 40-year-old woman in Vancouver, the result of a three-decade police investigation.
Juan Manuel Rueda Salud is accused in the second-degree murder of Muriel Lindsay on or around Feb. 16, 1996. Investigators escorted him Wednesday from Oaxaca to Vancouver, where he remains in custody.
The death of Lindsay, who worked at the old Canada Post building on Georgia Street, sent shockwaves through the city.
Vancouver Police Department (VPD) Insp. Ryan Smith, who worked on the case dubbed Project Honour for 12 years, said she was found “brutally attacked and beaten to death.”
“Her murder was shockingly violent, and a shock to the city,” he said.
Lindsay’s body was found in her apartment on Feb. 17, 1996 by her mother, who grew concerned when she didn’t hear from her daughter, who usually called her almost every day.
Smith said Lindsay and Rueda Salud lived in the same apartment building. Investigators quickly identified him as a person of interest in the case, but he left for Mexico just weeks after the murder.
In a police handout, Muriel Lindsay is pictured at a Vancouver coffee shop in 1994 with a family member. (Vancouver Police Department)
Investigators tracked down Rueda Salud in Oaxaca in 2015. He was formally charged in early November 2024, and arrested under a provisional warrant in Mexico in January 2025.
Rueda Salud spent 18 months in Mexican custody appealing his extradition. He became eligible to be extradited to Canada on July 15.
VPD investigators flew to Mexico on Monday and escorted him back to Vancouver on Wednesday.
‘Considerable amount of evidence’
Smith, who was part of the team that travelled to Mexico, declined to discuss specific evidence because the case is now before the courts.
But he said investigators in the ’90s were meticulous in interviewing witnesses and gathering physical evidence, which allowed the force to pursue the case over 30 years later.
“I can say that our forensic investigators gathered a considerable amount of evidence at the crime scene,” he said.
“We were fortunate the detectives at the time did an excellent job in speaking to a whole range of witnesses and getting very accurate witness accounts.”
He said the department worked “diligently for decades” with Canadian law enforcement agencies, agencies in Mexico and the U.S., and forensic science and technology partners at the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
Smith said Rueda Salud’s departure to Mexico substantially delayed making an arrest in the case.
“That created significant challenges. Just until recently we didn’t have an extradition process with Mexico,” he said.
Smith described Lindsay as “a cancer survivor with big blue eyes. She loved her cats, she loved her friends and her family. They miss her to this day.”
He said Lindsay’s parents, who have both passed, never gave up hope that an arrest would be made in the case.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.