ANTIOCH, Calif. -- Antioch Police announced Tuesday evening that the suspect who had been detained as a person of interest in the early morning dragging death of a 40-year-old Antioch woman has confessed to the crime.
T he Contra Costa County coroner's office on Wednesday identified the victim as Shelly Baker.
Baker, 47, was killed after allegedly getting into a fight with Lucio Rivera-Avila, 51, of Brentwood, shortly before 2 a.m. Tuesday, according to police.
Police said the two were acquaintances and that fight occurred as they sat in his Nissan Frontier truck in the parking lot of a store at 1725 Cavallo Road.
Baker, who is a transient, exited the truck and was walking away when the vehicle shot forward and hit her "extremely hard," Antioch police Lt. Leonard Orman said.
Video surveillance footage shows the woman becoming airborne then being dragged by the truck before it drove away, Orman said.
Officers found Baker in the roadway seriously wounded. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said.
Rivera-Avila was arrested later Tuesday on suspicion of killing her.
The arrest came when, shortly after the incident, two detectives noticed a silver, four-door Nissan Frontier that matched the description of the suspect vehicle parked less than a mile from where the woman was hit, Orman said.
Nobody was in the truck when the detectives first went up to it, but Rivera-Avila soon approached the detectives and began talking to them.
He agreed to have the vehicle towed and go in for questioning, and he later allegedly admitted to hitting Baker and was arrested around noon that day, police said.
Orman said police are still investigating what prompted the fight between Baker and Rivera-Avila, who is originally from El Salvador but had been in the U.S. for about 20 years.
Rivera-Avila said he is here legally, but police plan to contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to report the arrest, Orman said.
Rivera-Avila was convicted in 1994 of felony assault with a deadly weapon in San Francisco, Orman said.
Investigators found a gun in Rivera-Avila's home, which he was not permitted to have because of his conviction.
The Police Department is asking anyone with information about Rivera-Avila or the hit-and-run to come forward.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Antioch police Detective Mike Mellone at (925) 779-6930.
Baker was Antioch's 10th homicide victim of the year, Orman said.

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