Carson City prisoner convicted in 1997 Nevada killing extradited to Arizona

PHOENIX — A 44-year-old man convicted in Nevada in the 1997 killing of a woman has been extradited to Arizona, where he faces murder and kidnapping charges in the death of another woman.

Craig Leslie Jacobsen, also known as John Flowers, was extradited Thursday from Carson City and taken into custody at a Phoenix airport, an Arizona court document says. He remained jail Friday in lieu of $1 million bond pending a July 23 arraignment.

A grand jury on Oct. 14, 2014, charged Jacobsen with first-degree murder and kidnapping in the death of Christina Marie Martinez in Maricopa County “on or between April 22, 1987 and May 10, 1987.”

The indictment said Martinez was restrained and died as a result of the alleged kidnapping, but it did not elaborate on her death or the victim.

Sgt. Jonathan Howard of the Phoenix Police Department declined to discuss the case, saying it was “too far along in the process” to discuss the police investigation.

Jacobsen was convicted in the killing of a 20-year-old singer and dancer, Ginger Rios, who disappeared after she went to Jacobsen’s spycraft store in Las Vegas.

Rios’ husband, Mark Hollinger, said after his wife’s disappearance that he drove her to the store to buy a book on how to clean up her credit report and that she never came out.

months earlier. Both graves were covered by concrete caps. Guided by Jacobsen’s wife, authorities found Rios’ body buried in 1997 in a desert grave near Florence in Pinal County in southern Arizona. Hunters found another woman’s body buried nearby several

Jacobsen “admitted to killing the other female in Las Vegas and burying her in Arizona,” according to a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department website description of the case of the other woman.

Drew Christensen, a former public defender in Las Vegas who represented Jacobsen in the Nevada case involving Rios, did not immediately respond to a call Friday.

The Nevada Department of Corrections said Friday that Jacobsen entered the prison system in 2003 to serve a term of 20 years to life and that Jacobsen had a parole-eligibility date of Dec. 31, 2018.

The department’s spokesman, Brian Connett, did not immediately respond to a request for information on how Jacobsen went to Arizona and whether Jacobsen still faces prison time in Nevada.