It was an web sleuth — claiming to have used facial recognition expertise and social media clues — who pointed authorities to the whereabouts of a longtime U.S. fugitive main a double life in Ontario.
CBC Information has pieced collectively new particulars concerning the nameless tip that led Toronto police earlier this 12 months to apprehend Patrick Lutts Jr., greater than 20 years after he skipped a Florida courtroom listening to on manslaughter costs and vanished.
A CBC investigation just lately revealed Lutts, 51, had been overtly residing within the metropolis for years, internet hosting a month-to-month bar trivia night time and dealing as a self-styled psychic, all whereas evading U.S. authorities.
Court docket data present the Texas-born Lutts was charged in March 1999 with DUI manslaughter in reference to an early-morning crash in Orlando that killed two teenagers. He was scheduled to enter a plea in October 2003 however disappeared, till his arrest by the Toronto Police Service fugitive squad this previous February.
Lutts is ready to look in an Ontario courtroom on Wednesday. He faces extradition to Florida and has not responded to the allegations since his arrest. It is not clear how or when he arrived in Canada, and the border company does not have data of his entry. He has no authorized standing within the nation, in response to Ontario courtroom information.
“It has been a rollercoaster of feelings,” stated Jorge Leon, whose cousin Nancy Lopez was killed within the collision in Orlando on Christmas Day 1998.
Investigators stated Lutts had spent the earlier night time consuming and slammed his truck into the automobile carrying Lopez, 19, and her 18-year-old boyfriend Darvin Javier DeJesus-Taboada. The couple was killed on influence.
“You simply left,” Leon stated of Lutts’s years on the run. “You have been a coward.”
‘I discover fugitives and have discovered a number of earlier than’
In 2019, Leon stated he created a Fb web page devoted to Lutts in hopes of drawing consideration to the case. Then, in April 2024, got here the message that modified every little thing.
“Hiya,” the nameless observe learn. “I want to speak to you about Patrick Lutts.”
What adopted was an avalanche of latest data — CBC has managed to verify a lot of it — concerning the fugitive’s whereabouts, the Toronto bar the place he labored as a quizmaster and the alias he was utilizing on-line: Pat Lighthelp.
“I discovered him with facial recognition,” the tipster wrote, whereas sharing footage from Lutts’s Fb profile. Leon stated the particular person did not reveal their gender or actual identify, however stated they lived within the U.S. and had already reported the findings to a criminal offense tip line.
“I discover fugitives and have discovered a number of earlier than,” the tipster wrote within the sequence of messages reviewed by CBC. The particular person stated that they had began trying into Lutts after seeing him featured in an internet discussion board for followers of the TV present America’s Most Wished.
“We’re lastly getting justice,” Leon, the sufferer’s cousin, stated in an interview. “And it is due to this particular person.”
A abstract of Florida prosecutors’ proof within the case, filed in Ontario Superior Court docket as a part of extradition proceedings, confirms investigators first received wind of Lutts’s location from an nameless tip in November 2023. The tipster instructed Leon that they had already reached out to authorities that very same month.
Toronto police later tracked the fugitive to an house constructing within the metropolis’s Church and Wellesley space.
Fugitive was lively on-line
Till his arrest in February, Lutts supplied shoppers relationship recommendation and life teaching on-line underneath his Pat Lighthelp alias.
His profile disappeared from the New Zealand-based “psychic studying” platform LifeReader earlier this month after CBC requested the corporate about its data of Lutts’s previous.
LifeReader didn’t reply to requests for remark.
On-line posts present Lutts additionally hosted a month-to-month horror-themed trivia night time at a Toronto bar.
“Congratulations to the winners and we sit up for seeing all of you [in] 2025!” Lutts stated in an internet submit in December.
Whereas the tipster prompt they scoured social media for clues, the Orange County Sheriff’s Workplace in Florida declined to debate what investigative steps had been taken through the years to find Lutts.
“There would have been a warrant issued, and any legislation enforcement company would have been capable of finding the warrant within the system,” a spokesperson stated in an e mail.
Kenneth Grey, a former FBI particular agent who now teaches prison justice at Connecticut’s College of New Haven, stated it’s normal for an nameless tip to show essential within the seek for a fugitive. In any other case, he stated, suspects not featured on a most-wanted checklist could stay on the run indefinitely.
“Except you come into contact with legislation enforcement by some means, or attempt to fly on an plane or attempt to cross the border, it is potential to stay hidden from legislation enforcement considerably efficiently,” Grey stated.
Ryan Hittel, a lawyer representing Nancy Lopez’s mom Nelida Cordero, stated in an announcement that Cordero is “extraordinarily grateful for the efforts of American and Canadian legislation enforcement — and for the assistance of the nameless tipster — which have resulted within the seize of Patrick Lutts Jr.”
This previous February, Lopez’s cousin Jorge Leon wrote to the web sleuth to share information of Lutts’s arrest. The message was by no means delivered. An automated response stated the person had already closed their Fb account.
Leon stated he solely needs he may thank the tipster.
“She or he would positively get a hug from me, my aunt [Nelida], the entire household,” he stated.
“You’re an angel to us.”
