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Suspect held in Tampa reporter's 1989 killing©Associated PressNovember 7, 2002 LIMA, Peru -- Antiterrorism police have detained a suspect in the 1989 murder of journalist Todd Smith of the Tampa Tribune, who was killed while investigating links between guerrillas and drug traffickers in the Peruvian jungle. Police captured Pedro Roberto Villacorta on Sunday in Tumbes, Peru, 625 miles northwest of Lima near the Ecuadoran border, police Lt. Armando Rodriguez said Wednesday. Police declined to give details other than to say that Villacorta is suspected of participating in the murder and that his name is thought to be an alias. Smith, a 28-year-old reporter for the Tampa Tribune who also had worked for the St. Petersburg Times, went to Peru on vacation in 1989 to investigate ties between Shining Path rebels and drug traffickers. Media reports said he was abducted at gunpoint. Smith's body was found on Nov. 22, 1989. The Peruvian Press and Society Institute said in a 1994 report that seven people were involved in the murder: four who abducted him and three drug traffickers who ordered the killing. The suspect is being held in Trujillo, 300 miles northwest of Lima, while investigations continue, Rodriguez said. Another man, Shining Path guerrilla Jose Antonio Manrique, was convicted of Smith's murder in 1993 and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
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