A man sought in connection with the 2001 slaying of a 15-year-old boy in Daly City has been arrested in New York, police said Wednesday.

Erick Morales, 25, was arrested Monday by New York state troopers on Long Island for allegedly driving under the influence and providing a false name, said Daly City police Lt. Jay Morena.

A routine fingerprint check uncovered Morales' true identity, Morena said.

Morales is suspected of participating in the May 21, 2001, slaying of Quetzalcoatl Alba, who was found dead in a storage room in the carport area of an apartment complex on Park Plaza Drive. He had been stabbed in the neck and chest.

Shortly after the slaying, police interviewed Morales and Carlos Maldonado, 22, the two men believed to be the last to have seen Alba, Morena said. Morales and Alba were classmates at Westmoor High School.

Morales and Maldonado denied any involvement in the killing. Afterward, they left the Daly City home they shared and never returned.

In October 2007, police acting on a tip served a search warrant at the home on the 200 block of Miriam Street and found the knife believed to have been used in the killing, bloody clothes and Alba's cell phone buried on the property, authorities said.

Detectives tracked Maldonado to Miami, where he had been living under an assumed name and doing landscaping work. He was brought back to the Bay Area by way of San Francisco International Airport, where he tried to escape by jumping 25 feet off a parking structure, authorities said. Maldonado was seriously injured. He is now on trial for murder.

Morales is expected to be extradited to San Mateo County later this week.