JACKSONVILLE, N.C. – A prosecutor offered a deal Thursday to Mexican authorities and a Marine wanted in the killing of a 20-year-old pregnant colleague: If he is arrested in Mexico, he won’t face lethal injection in North Carolina.

Investigators believe Cpl. Cesar Laurean has fled to his native Mexico, which refuses to send anyone back to the United States unless assured they won’t face the death penalty.

“The choices presented to me were either a possible life without parole sentence, or the defendant living in Mexico the rest of his life and never brought to trial,” Onslow County District Attorney Dewey Hudson said in announcing an indictment charging Laurean, 21, with first-degree murder.

The remains of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, 20, were found with those of her fetus earlier this month in a fire pit in Laurean’s back yard. Lauterbach, who had once accused Laurean of rape, had been missing since mid-December. Military investigators are still working to identify the father of Lauterbach’s unborn child, Hudson said.

Laurean fled Jacksonville in early January, leaving a note for his wife, Christina, that said Lauterbach slit her own throat with a knife, and he then buried her in the woods near their home. Detectives have rejected that claim, and an autopsy found that Lauterbach died of blunt force trauma to the head.

Authorities have determined that Lauterbach’s child had not been born at the time of her death, Hudson said, so prosecutors can only charge Laurean with one count of murder.

The grand jury also charged Laurean with robbery with a dangerous weapon and a charge involving an unauthorized financial transaction.

“Because of the all the attention, I hope (Mexican authorities) will move on this case very quickly,” Hudson said.