In Italy, U.S. woman jailed in ’02 slaying

ROME — An American woman wanted in the 2002 death of her husband, whose remains were so badly burned they weren’t identified for more than a decade, was arrested in Rome after a multinational search, police said Thursday.

Rome police arrested Beverly McCallum, 59, overnight after she and her teenage son checked into a Rome hotel on the northwest outskirts of the capital. Italian hotels are required to register guests in an online system linked to a police database.

The process revealed that Mccallum had an Interpol arrest warrant against her, police said in a statement.

U.S. authorities had been seeking to extradite Mccallum from Pakistan, where she was believed to be living, to stand trial in the slaying of her husband, Robert Caraballo. In 2002, he was beaten and suffocated, and his body was dumped and burned in a blueberry patch in western Michigan.

Police said Mccallum was being held at Rome’s Rebibbia prison.

In Michigan, the Eaton County sheriff ’s office said it was aware of the arrest but had no immediate comment.

“We have seen media reports of a U.S. citizen arrested in Rome,” the U.S. State Department said. “Whenever a U.S. citizen is arrested overseas, we stand ready to provide all appropriate consular services. Due to privacy considerations we have no further comment at this time.”

Caraballo’s badly burned remains were found in a scorched footlocker in a wooded area in Ottawa County, Michigan, in the days following his death. The identity of the victim was unknown until police received an anonymous tip in 2015.

In the years after the slaying, Mccallum reportedly met a man from Pakistan over the internet and moved there. Rome police said she had fled to Pakistan after learning police were on her trail.