The 19-year-old accused of gunning down Mobile Police Officer Sean Tuder is facing a growing list of criminal charges, as investigators say the days leading up to the fatal shooting were marked by a string of thefts and break-ins across Mobile County.
Marco Perez now faces seven charges in state court, including two counts of first-degree theft, receiving stolen property, false reporting to a law enforcement officer, a probation violation, second-degree burglary and capital murder in connection with Tuder’s death. He also remains wanted on a federal firearms charge, which authorities say he was already evading when he first came onto the Mobile Police Department’s radar months before the shooting.
Tuder, 31, was killed Jan. 20 in the parking lot of the Peach Place Inn apartment complex while searching for Perez, who was the subject of multiple outstanding state and federal warrants at the time. Mobile Police Chief Lawrence Battiste said the officer had been actively looking for Perez when the confrontation turned deadly, marking the second line-of-duty death for the department in less than a year.
Investigators say the false reporting charge stems from an elaborate scheme involving Perez and his mother, Tiffany Perez, who told police her son had been kidnapped and was missing. Tiffany Perez was charged in connection with that false report just days before Tuder was killed, but Marco Perez remained at large.
Authorities now say he spent those final days on a crime spree that stretched across Mobile County. Perez has been charged with a burglary reported at a home on Charlene Court in West Mobile on the morning of Jan. 18. Court records indicate only a small amount of loose change and some fruit were taken in that break-in.
A separate charge accuses Perez of stealing a 2011 GMC pickup truck the same day from a residence on Brandy Oak Court. Both incidents were reported just two days before Tuder was killed and occurred less than a mile from the Peach Place Inn, the site of the officer’s fatal encounter with Perez.
The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office has also named Perez as a suspect in an earlier auto theft reported Jan. 13, in which a 2009 Lincoln MKX was taken from a home on Sugar Creek Drive South, in the same general area as the other alleged crimes.
Investigators have said the handgun used in the shooting had been stolen from an unlocked vehicle in the days before Tuder’s death, though none of the court documents connected to the newly filed charges specifically reference a firearm being taken. Officials have not said whether that allegation will result in an additional charge as the investigation continues.
Perez is scheduled to appear at a hearing Feb. 4, where prosecutors anticipate he will plead not guilty. Because he faces a capital murder charge, the state has the option to pursue the death penalty, though Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich has not said whether her office will seek it.
Perez remains held without bond at the Mobile County Metro Jail as the case moves through the court system. The mounting charges add further weight to a case that has already drawn intense scrutiny across the Mobile Bay area, coming less than a year after another Mobile police officer was killed in the line of duty.