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Victim identified, suspect arrested in Ruskin burned body case

Christian Segura-Alvarez, 20, admitted to involvement in the killing of Efrain Ibarra-Barcenas, whose body was found on April 15, records show.
 
A photo released by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office shows the field behind a neighborhood near the 1100 block of Will Scarlett Avenue where a burning body was found on April 15. Detectives learned the body was that of 44-year-old Efrain Ibarra-Barcenas of Ruskin and on April 20 arrested 20-year-old Christian Segura-Alvarez on charges of second degree murder and evidence tampering.
A photo released by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office shows the field behind a neighborhood near the 1100 block of Will Scarlett Avenue where a burning body was found on April 15. Detectives learned the body was that of 44-year-old Efrain Ibarra-Barcenas of Ruskin and on April 20 arrested 20-year-old Christian Segura-Alvarez on charges of second degree murder and evidence tampering. [ Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office ]
Published May 4, 2023|Updated May 7, 2023

When a body was found burning in a Ruskin field and deputies launched a homicide investigation last month, two questions loomed: Who was the person, and who was responsible for the grisly scene?

Court records show that within days of the discovery, investigators with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office had an answer to the first question and quietly made an arrest in the case.

Deputies arrested Christian Segura-Alvarez, 20, on April 21, six days after the body of Efrain Ibarra-Barcenas, 44, was found burning near the 1100 block of Will Scarlett Avenue, records show. Segura-Alvarez of Ruskin faces charges of second-degree murder with a firearm and tampering with evidence in a capital felony case.

Evidence, including Segura-Alvarez’s account of what happened, implicates a second man in the crime.

The sheriff’s office had not announced Segura-Alvarez’s arrest or identified Ibarra-Barcenas as the victim in the case.

In response to questions from the Tampa Bay Times, sheriff’s office spokesperson Amanda Granit confirmed Thursday that only one arrest has been made and that the county medical examiner had not yet provided Ibarra-Barcenas’ cause of death. Granit said the office could not release any other information because the investigation is still active.

Segura-Alvarez’s arrest affidavit and two search warrant affidavits lay out how investigators made the arrest. Among the previously unreleased details in the case: Ibarra-Barcenas had been stabbed in the back with a large knife that was still lodged in his body.

A concerned wife

A 911 caller reported seeing what they thought was a mannequin in a field in the area of 1100 Will Scarlett Avenue about 8 a.m. on April 15. According to the affidavits, the caller said the mannequin appeared to have an arrow protruding from its back. That turned out to be what the affidavits describe as “a large, bladed weapon” and a “knife.”

Another witness later told detectives that she saw something on fire in the field as early as 4 a.m.

On or near the body, investigators found remnants of an orange shirt, blue jean fabric and a brown work boot. There was what appeared to be tape around the body’s right arm and a belt around the ankles.

Investigators also found a set of tire tracks near the body, indicating a vehicle had been driven into the field near the intersection of 12th Street Southeast and 16th Avenue Southeast and had been driven away west on Will Scarlett Avenue.

As detectives worked at the scene, Mercedes Ibarra approached and said she had not heard from her husband, Efrain, since the previous morning. Mercedes Ibarra told detectives he’d left for work about 6 a.m. on April 14 and never returned to the couple’s home, which is less than a mile south of where the body was found. When Mercedes Ibarra saw the law enforcement activity, she thought maybe he’d crashed his truck.

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Investigators found one of Ibarra-Barcenas’ pay stubs near the body, and the remnants of clothing matched the description of what he was wearing when he was last seen alive.

A week later, on April 21, the medical examiner confirmed what investigators by then had already concluded: The body was that of Ibarra-Barcenas.

Efrain Ibarra-Barcenas is pictured in a screenshot of his online obituary on nationalcremation.com. [ nationalcremation.com ]

Mercedes Ibarra said her husband was last known to be drinking at a home on the 1200 block of 10th Avenue Southeast, about a mile north of where his body was found, with some men he’d worked with that day.

One of the men was Segura-Alvarez. He and another man told detectives they were drinking at the house with Ibarra-Barcenas from about 6 to 9 p.m. on April 14, and then Ibarra-Barcenas said he wanted to go to a bar or nightclub and left alone in his white 2014 Chevy Silverado, the affidavits state.

The Times is not naming the second man in this story because the sheriff’s office would not confirm if he is a suspect in the case.

Christian Segura-Alvarez, 20, is pictured in a Hillsborough County booking photo taken on April 21, when he was arrested on charges of second degree murder with a firearm and evidence tampering in connection to the death of Efrain Ibarra-Barcenas. [ Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office ]

Mercedes Ibarra said her husband’s truck and phone were not at the house. Detectives pinged the phone and saw it was near the Newberry Road exit off Interstate 75 in the Gainesville area. A license plate reader showed Ibarra-Barcenas’ pickup was in that area about 6:18 a.m. on April 15.

The next day, investigators found Ibarra-Barcenas’ phone in the same area.

The phone’s data showed it was at the 10th Avenue home about 9:30 p.m. on April 15 and then moved to the area of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Armenia Avenue in Tampa until about 11:30 p.m. The phone was back at the 10th Avenue home from about 2:35 a.m. to 3:36 a.m. the next day, and then at the field on Will Scarlett Avenue from 3:36 a.m. to 3:43 a.m.

Detectives found surveillance video from the Fort Lonesome Grocery on State Road 674 that showed the Chevy pull up to the gas pumps at 2:35 a.m. Two men who did not appear to be Ibarra-Barcenas were in the truck, and the driver got out briefly before reentering and driving away.

Surveillance video from the Rebel convenience store on U.S. 301 in Riverview, west of Fort Lonesome, showed the truck there from 2:54 a.m. to 3 a.m. A man got out of the driver’s seat, purchased a phone charger with cash and left.

On April 17, the sheriff’s office released a photo of that man, calling him a person of interest in the case.

On April 21, a witness who knows the second man who spoke to detectives at the 10th Avenue home told detectives he was the same man seen in the video from the Riverview store. The witness said he had seen the man the previous day, April 20, and the man told him “not to say anything.”

Detectives got a search warrant for the 10th Avenue home, and while the search was underway, Segura-Alvarez arrived and was shown the video of the man at the Rebel store, according to the arrest affidavit. He became “visibly upset” and asked to be interviewed elsewhere, the affidavit states.

During the interview, Segura-Alvarez said he and the other man had been drinking that night with Ibarra-Barcenas. Segura-Alvarez said he witnessed the other man kill Ibarra-Barcenas and bind him with tape. Segura-Alvarez said he helped load Ibarra-Barcenas’ body into his pickup truck and take it to the field where, according to Segura-Alvarez, the other man lit the body on fire.

Segura-Alvarez also admitted to hitting Ibarra-Barcenas at least three times in the stomach and that the other man hit and kicked him multiple times.

Though Segura-Alvarez is charged with murder with a firearm, the arrest affidavit does not indicate if Segura-Alvarez stated how Ibarra-Barcenas was killed. The medical examiner has ruled the death a homicide, but the cause of death is not included in the records.

None of the court documents indicate a suspected motive.

Segura-Alvarez was being held in the Hillsborough County jail with bail set at $600,000. Records list his occupation as a day laborer.

Hillsborough Public Defender Julianne Holt, whose office is representing Segura-Alvarez, declined to comment on the case Thursday.

A family member of Ibarra-Barcenas’ reached by the Times said the family was holding off on commenting while the investigation was ongoing.

Ibarra-Barcenas was born in Mexico, and public records show he had lived in southeast Hillsborough County for more than 20 years.