Canadian Police Arrest Alleged Mail Bomber : Crime: William Ross, a fugitive wanted in the 1980 death of a Manhattan Beach secretary, is found in Vancouver.

A Westside real estate broker wanted in the 1980 mail-bomb murder of a Manhattan Beach secretary has been arrested in Vancouver, Canada, where he was living under assumed names, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

William Ross, 57, a fugitive since last August, was taken into custody without incident Tuesday night when he returned to his basement apartment, according to Assistant U.S. Attys. Dean Dunlavey and Patricia Donahue. It was not immediately clear how Canadian police traced Ross to the apartment.

The arrest of Ross came coincidentally on the same day that the Israeli Justice Department ordered another defendant in the case, Rochelle Ida Manning, 53, to be extradited to California for trial.

Manning’s 41-year-old husband, Robert, who was extradited from Israel last July, was convicted in Los Angeles federal court last month of complicity in the killing of the secretary, Patricia Wilkerson, 32. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 3.

Robert Manning, a former Jewish Defense League activist, also has been named by federal officials as the prime suspect in the 1985 bombing death in Santa Ana of Alex Odeh, head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s western office. However, he has never been charged in the Odeh case.

Dunlavey said Ross became a fugitive on Aug. 6 when he failed to show up in Los Angeles federal court to answer charges of aiding and abetting the mailing of an explosive device with intent to kill.

U.S. postal inspectors said Ross had been using several aliases, including Robert Levy, when Vancouver police surprised him Tuesday night.

“I’m sure it was a very bad evening for him,” Dunlavey said.

The bomb that killed Wilkerson was intended for her boss, Brenda Crouthamel Adams, who helped run the ProWest computer firm where Wilkerson worked, authorities said.

Adams and Ross had been involved in a three-year legal battle over the sale of a house, and Ross hired the Mannings, who were associates in the JDL, to mail the bomb to Adams, prosecutors believe.

Adams was too busy to open the cardboard box when it arrived, so she left it on Wilkerson’s chair, Dunlavey said. When Wilkerson unwrapped the package later in the day, she found that it contained a metal device, prosecutors said. Accompanying the device were instructions to plug it into an electrical outlet in order to hear a recorded message.

Wilkerson plugged in the device, triggering a blast that killed her and leveled the ProWest office.