Lyyn Keel, left, was wanted in the murder of his wife, Diana. (Facebook)
A North Carolina man wanted on a first-degree murder warrant in connection with the killing of his wife was arrested Sunday morning in Arizona -- just 34 miles from the Mexico border, officials said.
The Nash County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that Rexford Lynn Keel, 57, was taken into custody following a traffic stop on Interstate 10 near Tucson. The statement added that Keel had many bank receipts "and a large sum of money with him" when he was arrested.
It was not immediately clear when Keel would be extradited to North Carolina. He was being held Sunday at the Pima County Jail in Tucson.
Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone told reporters Sunday afternoon that Keel "could have made it a lot tougher" for law enforcement to apprehend him if he had crossed the southern border.
The body of Keel's wife, 38-year-old Diana Alejandra Keel, was found on March 12 by North Carolina Department of Transportation employees along a remote road about 30 minutes away from her home in Nashville. Her death has been ruled a homicide, though officials have not said exactly how she died.
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The woman's mother told WTVD her daughter had planned to divorce her husband, but she also told the station that Lynn Keel had threatened Diana.
Detectives are also re-examining the 2006 death of his first wife, Elizabeth. Investigators initially ruled Elizabeth Keel's death an accident after she fell on the corner of some concrete steps in front of their Nashville house.
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Fox News' Anna Hopkins and Elizabeth Zwirz contributed to this report.
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