A resident of the Cowichan Valley is facing extradition to California to answer to charges of murder and kidnapping in a cold-case file dating back to the 1990鈥檚.
Anthony Michael Kubica, 61, recently made a court appearance in Victoria in connection with the extradition request made by the Riverside County District Attorney鈥檚 office, and is expected to make a second court appearance in January.
A publication ban on the information that was revealed in the court appearance has been issued.
Kubica is wanted for the murder and kidnapping of Palm Springs resident Marie Darling, a 78-year-old wealthy widow who disappeared from her home 27 years ago.
Her body was found wrapped in a sleeping bag by hikers alongside a highway, with her feet bound in duct tape, according to the declaration in support of an arrest warrant.
An autopsy performed on the body found the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head.
It was later discovered that more than $184,000 had been transferred out of the victim鈥檚 Swiss bank account to an account in Anguilla that Kubica, who lived and operated a company in Palm Springs at the time, had allegedly opened around the same time the body was found.
Kubica and his wife, whom the court documents refer to as CJ, were suspects early in the investigation but the trail went cold.
A cold-case investigator has since discovered that Kubica鈥檚 wife was Darling鈥檚 financial advisor, even though she鈥檇 denied knowing Darling during the original investigation.
Kubica鈥檚 wife has since passed away too.
Kubica was recently in the local news due to his connections with a development company that was testing the aquifer systems near Lake Cowichan 鈥� roughly two hours north of Victoria 鈥� in preparation for a possible housing development in the area.
Kubica could not be reached for comment.
FOR RELATED STORY,
robert.barron@cowichanvalleycitizen.com
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