A Cowichan Valley man is facing extradition to the U.S. in connection with a 27-year-old homicide in California.

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Anthony Michael Kubica is charged with murder in the death of 78-year-old Marie Darling, whose body was found in the Coachella Valley desert on June 28, 1990.

Darling’s feet were bound with duct tape. Her body was placed inside a sleeping bag and covered in what looked like cat litter. An autopsy showed she died of blunt-force trauma to the head, which caused multiple skull fractures.

The Riverside County district attorney’s office alleges that Kubica, who lived in Palm Springs at the time, killed the wealthy widow to save his house from foreclosure.

According to court documents, the Riverside sheriff’s office believes there is “an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence” linking Kubica to Darling’s death.

California bank records show a bank was foreclosing on Kubica’s Palm Springs home. Cash deposits made after Darling’s murder allowed Kubica to cover all outstanding mortgage payments in one lump sum.

A year after the killing, a Darling family lawyer discovered that $184,135 US had been transferred from Darling’s Swiss bank account to Anguilla, a territory in the eastern Caribbean. The National Bank of Anguilla account that received the money was opened on May 24, 1990, by Kubica, according to California court documents.

Financial records show Kubica went to the Anguilla bank to withdraw $170,000 in two separate transactions. He asked the bank to transfer the remaining $130,000 to a Royal Bank of Canada account in his name.

In 1993, Riverside sheriff’s investigators searched Kubica’s home in Scottsdale, Arizona. They found receipts, including one for the purchase of duct tape, from Palm Springs on June 1, 1990.

They also found documents regarding travel to Anguilla and banking documents in Kubica’s name relating to the Anguilla account.

Kubica’s phone records revealed that before the murder, contact was made with Darling’s Swiss bank.

Court documents said Kubica has been living in the Shawnigan Lake area for decades. He is behind a controversial plan to build 500 homes in the Cowichan Valley.

Kubica and his wife have five children. Connie Jo Kubica, who died of cancer in 2010, was the vice-president of her daughter’s school.

An extradition hearing for Kubica will take place in January.

kderosa@timescolonist.com