A Columbia man's three roommates have been arrested on charges they beat him to death during a drunken fight last month, Howard County police said yesterday.

Detectives tracked Donis Maldonado, 25, and Marcos Escalante, 30, to Clayton County, Ga., where they were arrested June 22. They also face fraud charges in Georgia, Howard police said.

The third suspect, Reyes Cruz Escalante, 20, was arrested Thursday in Charlotte, N.C., police said.

The men lived with 33-year- old Antonio Ayala in the Tor apartment complex in the 5700 block of Stevens Forest Road.

Police believe the four roommates had been drinking together in a wooded area behind Flowerstock Row when Marcos Escalante and Ayala started fighting.

The other two roommates joined in and the three beat Ayala to death with sticks and rocks, police said. The state medical examiner ruled that Ayala died of blunt-force trauma, police said.

After the beating, police said, the three men dragged Ayala farther into the woods. A lawn maintenance worker found his body May 20. Detectives then learned the man's roommates had been missing since May 17, police said.

Pfc. Denise Walk, a Howard police spokeswoman, said police collected information from two tip lines established to investigate the killing. For the first time in Howard County, one line was in Spanish, she said.

"We reached out to both communities, and it paid off," she said.

The Escalantes, who are cousins, and Maldonado will be formally charged with first- and second-degree murder and first- and second-degree assault when they are extradited to Howard County, police said.

They were being held outside Maryland pending extradition hearings and local charges, police said.