Louis Gabriel Lucero, 35, [left] allegedly killed his live in girlfriend Erlinda Villareal, 42, along with her sons Jay Mendoza, 9, and 12-year-old Joe Mendoza, at an unknown location and left them in the desert in Apple Valley, sometime after he abducted them on Wednesday  morning.
Hours later on Wednesday evening somebody off-roading in the area, discovered the bodies, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
Lucero reportedly fled San Bernardino, California, but he was arrested Thursday afternoon more than 800 miles away in Eagle County, Colorado on an unrelated charge, the sheriff’s department said.
The fugitive is being held in Colorado on the other charge, which was not specified, in addition for a warrant for the triple homicide in California.
He will be scheduled for an extradition hearing before he is returned to San Bernardino County to face murder charges.
On the day the mother and her sons vanished, sheriff’s deputies initially responded to the Victorville home in the 15400 block of Ferndale Road that Lucero and Villareal shared after a relative in the house called authorities Wednesday morning.  

The bodies of the mother and sons were found about eight miles away from their home around 5.30pm. Authorities did not say how they were killed.
Villareal and Lucero had been dating for more than a year, were planning to get married. Last May the pair got matching tattoos, spelling each other’s names 
The children’s biological father of Villarreal’s murdered sons told KCAL he had just dropped off the boys at their mother’s home on Tuesday night.

According to Villareal’s Facebook page, she and Lucero had been dating for more than a year.
In may 2019, Villareal had her boyfriend’s name tattooed on her left hand, and he had her name inked on his neck.
Around the same time, she wrote about their plans to get married.
Before her death, Villareal had just become a grandmother again a week ago, when her grown daughter welcomed a baby son.