ANJELICA (BABY HOPE) CASTILLO - 4 yo - (1991) / Charged: Cousin, Conrado Juarez - Manhattan, NY

NYPD Makes New Push to Find 1991 "Baby Hope" Killer  
Anjelica Castillo

NBCNewYork.com

updated 7/24/2013 11:18:42 AM ET



Police are making a renewed push to find the killer of a toddler dubbed "Baby Hope," whose body was found inside a cooler dumped in a wooded area in Manhattan 22 years ago Tuesday.   Authorities are circulating new posters and an NYPD Crime Stoppers van is in Washington Heights, publicizing the $12,000 reward and and asking for anyone with information to call 1-800-577-TIPS.   The child, who was never identified, was believed to be 3 to 5 years old, and was found by construction workers on July 23, 1991, along the Henry Hudson Parkway and Dyckman Street.   She was never reported missing by family, and reports at the time said she had been starved and sexually abused. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System database lists her as weighing 25 pounds and being 3 feet, 2 inches tall.   She was bound and her hair was in a ponytail with a yellow elastic.   Police say the cooler could have been placed there anytime between July 13 and July 22.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/52555192#.UfC0Cm1FPdc

Another mother choosing her man over her baby.  I pray this baby is identified and her murderer found.

NYPD Locates Mother Of Baby Hope, Says DNA Sample Was Key

By: Jon Weinstein
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Updated 2:02 PM

The New York City Police Department on Tuesday confirmed a DNA sample was successfully used to identified the mother of Baby Hope, marking the first big break in the more than two decades old case.

The child's body was found inside a cooler near the Henry Hudson Parkway in Washington Heights in July 1991.

She was estimated to be between 3 and 5 years old when she died, and weighed just 25 pounds.

Her arms were tied and she appeared to have been starved, beaten and sexually abused.

Police recently renewed their push to solve the case, posting flyers of the girl in Washington Heights this summer.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Baby Hope's body was exhumed in 2011 to get a DNA sample. He says officers kept on the case and now they've made a breakthrough.

"We have been able to identify the mother of Baby Hope as a result of, in my judgement, outstanding detective work. A DNA match was made with the mother and the mother has been cooperating," Kelly said.

Meantime, people who spoke with NY1 in the neighborhood say there are a lot of questions that still need to be answered.

"Maybe she might have worried, and you know where was her daughter, why she never came up and ask you know what happened to my daughter I mean these are questions that pop up in everybody's mind, What happened?" said one Washington Heights resident.

"It would be good to know it was something that came out when I was about 10 years old and it had me curious about what happened. Any clues in the case would be interesting to find out if it was somebody from around here," said another Washington Heights resident.

Police named the little girl Baby Hope, and paid for her funeral.

http://www.ny1.com/content/news/190110/nypd-locates-mother-of-baby-hope--says-dna-sample-was-key

Baby Hope’s Mother Is Interviewed as Investigators Proceed With Caution

By MARC SANTORA and J. DAVID GOODMAN
Published: October 8, 2013

Baby Hope will likely soon have a name.

More than two decades after the decomposed remains of a little girl were found in a blue cooler discarded on the side of the highway in northern Manhattan, detectives have interviewed a woman they say is the child’s mother.

After receiving a tip about the mother’s identity, investigators confirmed the woman’s relationship to the girl, who came to be known as Baby Hope, through a level of DNA testing that did not exist when the body was found in the summer of 1991.

“We have been able to identify the mother of Baby Hope as a result of, in my judgment, outstanding detective work,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said on Tuesday. “A DNA match was made with the mother, and the mother has been cooperating.”

He said they now know the child’s name and age, but declined to provide details about her, her mother or any possible suspects.

“Homicide is a distinct possibility here, so it is going in that direction,” he said, noting that the investigation was not limited to the mother.

Mr. Kelly said the child and her mother were both living in New York City before the body was found but did not elaborate.

According to two law enforcement officials who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, the mother is originally from Mexico and at one point lived in Queens. She was interviewed by detectives and Manhattan prosecutors in recent days.

The development brings the authorities one step closer to solving a case that captivated a city and haunted detectives who, despite working tirelessly to check out hundreds of leads, could never even give the victim a name.

Nobody has been arrested in connection with the case, and the law enforcement officials said investigators were proceeding with caution.

A retired investigator who worked on the case said that was the prudent approach.

“You only have one key to this whole thing right now, and by arresting this person, you turn off the only key to the past that you have,” said Joseph L. Giacalone, a retired detective sergeant in the cold case squad who worked on the case for several years in the late 2000s.

“The public is going to have to be patient,” he said. “We’ve waited for 22 years. They can wait a little longer to let the detectives do their job.”

The break in the case came after the authorities decided to go back to the neighborhood in July to once again search for clues, witnesses or anything that might help.

They received a tip from a woman who thought she might know the sister of Baby Hope, said a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. Using the information the woman provided, the police interviewed several people and eventually confirmed the mother’s identity.

The police have long believed that the girl was sexually abused and slain before her body was stuffed into an Igloo cooler, concealed beneath cans of Coca-Cola, and left in the brush on the side of the Henry Hudson Parkway.

But the condition of the remains hampered the investigation from the outset.

She was bound by the wrist, starved and showed signs of sexual abuse. All that the medical examiner could say for sure was that the girl was most likely between 3 and 5, was white or Hispanic, stood 3 feet 2 inches tall, and weighed about 25 pounds when she died.

At first, detectives called her “our baby.” Then they started calling her “Baby Hope,” in the hope that the case would be solved.

The 34th Precinct, which at the time covered Inwood and Washington Heights, had one of the highest homicide rates in the city.

In that precinct, Baby Hope was homicide No. 79 of the year.

But, even in a city inured to violence, the gruesome crime stood out.

Hundreds of tips poured in, each checked out, and each fruitless.

Detectives tried to track the soda cans by an inked code on the bottom, but they were indecipherable, washed out by the contents of the cooler.

The cooler itself was traced to where it was manufactured, in East Houston, Tex., in the hopes that its sale could be traced. Although only 79 coolers of that batch were delivered to New York State, dealers did not track purchases.

After two years, the police had run down more than 200 leads.

Still nothing.

On July 23, 1993, two years after Baby Hope was found, the detectives of the 34th Precinct buried the girl.

The officers – many of whom had kept a computer-generated photo of the girl on their desks for years -- arranged and paid for the funeral at St. Elizabeth Church in Washington Heights and burial at St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx.

“We are her family,” Detective Jerry Giorgio said at the time. “We are burying our baby.”

In 2007, the body was exhumed in the hopes that improved DNA testing technology might provide a lead in the case.

This summer, detectives from the cold case squad canvassed the neighborhood, speaking to residents and offering a $12,000 reward for any information that leads to an arrest and a conviction in the case.

A Police Department Crime Stoppers van circled Washington Heights, equipped with loudspeakers broadcasting a plea for tips.

“The New York City Police Department needs your help,” it blared, in English and Spanish, before providing some details of the case.

“We are asking the public’s help to identify this child,” Detective Robert Dewhurst, of the department’s Cold Case squad, said in July as police officers fanned out. “Obviously, somebody had to know her.”

Soon, they got the tip that led them to the girl’s mother and they were able to match their DNA, according to law enforcement officials.

Now, they are working to try to understand how she ended up in that cooler on that summer day two decades ago.

Mr. Kelly praised the detectives who stuck with the case, returning to the neighborhood each year around the anniversary that the remains were found to hand out fliers in an attempt to jog memories.

“They never gave up,” Mr. Kelly said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/nyregion/baby-hopes-mother-is-questioned-as-investigators-proceed-with-caution.html?_r=0

Baby Hope's mother identified 22 years after body found in cooler; police relieved to finally solve mystery
Police have homed in on the family of the little girl found murdered in 1991 and stuffed into a cooler along the Henry Hudson Parkway, a source said Tuesday. ‘I’m elated about this,’ said retired NYPD Detective Jerry Giorgio, who worked on the case for more than two decades.

By Rocco Parascandola , Thomas Tracy AND Larry Mcshane, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Tuesday, October 8, 2013, 7:44 AM
Updated: Tuesday, October 8, 2013, 8:07 PM

A phone tip in the 1991 homicide of “Baby Hope” led cops to the dead girl’s mom — and closer to solving the long-cold case, a law enforcement source said Tuesday.

Detectives interviewed the mother of the child whose body was found stuffed inside a cooler alongside the Henry Hudson Parkway in one of the city’s most notorious unsolved killings, the source said.

Investigators do not believe the mom was involved, and now suspect a relative or family friend was responsible for the vicious killing, the source said.

“Detectives have a little more work to do and find out who was around the mother at the time this happened,” a second source told the Daily News.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/baby-hope-mother-identified-12-years-article-1.1479242#ixzz2hBHkE0tQ

NYPD Wants to Talk to Father of Dead Baby Hope

October 8, 2013 (AP)
By TOM HAYS Associated Press

In a dramatic break in a cold case that frustrated police for more than two decades, investigators used DNA to identify the mother of a dead child known only as Baby Hope and now want to question her father, police said Tuesday.

The New York Police Department received a tip from someone after a publicity push over the summer. The tip, police said, led to the woman, whose name was being withheld amid a homicide investigation.

"A DNA match was made with the mother, and the mother is cooperating," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said on Tuesday.

The woman, who lives in the city, told police that she believed her child hadn't died. She said the girl, who was about 4 at the time, disappeared while she and a younger sister were in the care of her father. It was unclear whether the disappearance was ever reported.

After getting the tip, investigators used DNA from the girl's body to match her to her mother. Police said Tuesday that they were still trying to locate the father.

The case dates to July 23, 1991, when a road worker smelled something rotting and discovered the girl's remains inside a picnic cooler along the Henry Hudson Parkway. Her body was unclothed and malnourished and showed signs of possible sex abuse.

Detectives theorized at the time that she had been suffocated before being dumped like garbage on a grassy incline. They estimated she was dead six to eight days before the cooler was found.

In an interview in July, retired Detective Jerry Giorgio said he had pursued hundreds of leads but none panned out. He had the case from 1991 until he retired from the police force. Later, as an investigator for the Manhattan district attorney's office, he kept up with it. His name and contact information are still on a website dedicated to the girl.

"It was so frustrating," he said recently. "We initially thought we'll get her identified and go from there and probably solve the case. It didn't happen."

As the frustration mounted, so did detectives' affection for the victim. They began calling her "our baby." Eventually she became Baby Hope, because they hoped and prayed they'd solve the case, Giorgio said.

Giorgio was instrumental in organizing the girl's 1993 funeral, which was attended by hundreds of people. The girl was dressed in a white frock and buried in a white coffin.

Baby Hope's body was exhumed in 2007 for DNA testing, but no DNA could be extracted because of its poor condition. A second attempt was made in 2011 using better technology on bone material and produced a usable DNA sample, police said Tuesday.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/official-break-nyc-baby-hope-cold-case-20505716

'Baby Hope' case: Cousin confesses to sexually assaulting, killing toddler Anjelica Castillo more than two decades ago


Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announces dishwasher Conrado Juarez, 52, of the Bronx, has been arrested in connection with the murder. The 4-year-old's remains were found rotting in a picnic cooler along Henry Hudson Parkway on July 23, 1991.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Saturday, October 12, 2013, 4:46 PM
Updated: Saturday, October 12, 2013, 9:23 PM


John Minchillo/AP

Conrado Juarez, cousin and confessed killer of toddler Anjelica Castillo, waits to be arraigned at Manhattan Criminal Court on Saturday night.

The answer to the Baby Hope murder mystery was all in the family.

A cousin of the toddler brutally murdered two decades ago was arrested Saturday — marking a dramatic turn in one of the city’s most notorious cold cases.

Conrado Juarez, 52, being walked out of the 84th Precinct in Downtown Brooklyn after being arrested for the murder of Baby Hope, who has been identified as Anjelica Castillo.

Conrado Juarez, 52, confessed to killing the girl who was identified for the first time as 4-year-old Anjelica Castillo, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Juarez, a dishwasher from the Bronx, told cops he sexually assaulted and then smothered the tot at his sister’s home in Astoria, Queens.


A police sketch of Baby Hope, whose remains were found in a cooler on July 23, 1991. Police identified her Saturday as 4-year-old Anjelica Castillo.

The monster stuffed the girl's lifeless body into a cooler, Kelly said.

Juarez's sister, Balvina Juarez-Ramirez, who was caring for the girl, was also in on the scheme. She directed him to dispose of Anjelica's remains in a cooler, Juarez told cops.

Pearl Gabel/New York Daily News
Juarez (center) confessed to sexually assaulting and killing little Anjelica, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. 


Juarez and his sister, who is now dead, carried the cooler out of the apartment and took a black livery cab to Manhattan, where they dumped the ice box along a wooded stretch of the Henry Hudson Parkway.

Thomas Monaster/New York Daily News

An NYPD detective examines a blue cooler off the Henry Hudson Parkway after the body of a baby girl was found stuffed inside it on July 23, 1991.

“They then separated and Juarez returned to the Bronx and his sister to Queens,” Kelly said. “Never to speak of the heinous act again until the NYPD investigators through their relentless investigation caught up with Juarez.”

The arrest capped a case that vexed NYPD investigators for two decades.

Pearl Gabel/New York Daily News

Conrado Juarez, 52, is transported from the 84th Precinct on Saturday evening after his arrest for the killing of 4-year-old Anjelica Castillo.

“You know that phrase, ‘I'm on cloud nine? That's where I am right now,” said retired NYPD Detective Jerry Giorgio, who devoted his career to the case.

The child’s rotting remains were found stuffed inside a picnic cooler along the Henry Hudson Parkway near Inwood on July 23, 1991.

Richard Harbus for New York Daily News

Baby Hope's grave, which did not have a name or identification on it since 1991 until recently.

The little girl was naked, bound, beaten and sexually abused.

Alec Tabak for New York Daily News

NYPD Cold Case detectives escort Juarez into Manhattan Central Booking Saturday night after he confessed to sexually assaulting and then smothering the toddler at his sister's home in Astoria, Queens.

Detectives pursued hundreds of leads, but none panned out.

As the years passed, the investigators’ affection for the mystery child grew. They eventually named her Baby Hope.

Shawn Inglima for New York Daily News

Commissioner Ray Kelly, center, along with the investigative staff behind the case of Baby Hope, announcing the arrest of murder suspect Conrado Juarez on Oct. 12.

The case burst into the spotlight last week when cops announced that an anonymous phone tip led them to identify the dead girl’s mother.

Through old-fashioned street work, detectives then tracked down Juarez’s Bronx address, Kelly said.

Seth Wenig/AP

Passersby look at a poster advertising a reward for information on Baby Hope's killer on July 23, 2013, the 22nd anniversary of the day her body was discovered.
Juarez’s daughter answered the door and told cops a lie: that Juarez now lived in Mexico and had been there for the past 12 years.

But his wife told investigators a different story, saying that he was at work at a Manhattan restaurant, Kelly said.

Investigator met Juarez near the restaurant and convinced him to talk to them, Kelly said.

A source said that when Juarez confessed “it was like a there was a big weight lifted off his shoulders.”

"It's unbelievable to think he was walking around with that secret all these years, especially with all the publicity year after year,” the source added.

Kelly credited the solving of the murder mystery to dogged detective work.

“The detectives made sure that young Anjelica has gotten justice,” Kelly said.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance described the arrest as “an extraordinary example of police work.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/relative-arrested-baby-hope-case-article-1.1483690#ixzz2hZGvbaX3[/color]

I don't understand why this poor little girl was never reported missing.  Not by her mother and not by her father.  Why?

Baby Hope’s mom ‘devastated’


By Reuven Fenton

October 14, 2013 | 11:32am


Baby Hope's mother, Margarita Castillo (top right), is "devastated" by the revelations that Conrado Juarez tortured the little girl before killing her in the infamous cold case.

Photo: Demetrius Loadholt

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Baby Hope was tortured before her death: source

Baby Hope’s distraught mother is “devastated” by revelations that the tragic 4-year-old was tortured by a despicable cousin before he killed her and stashed the child’s body in a cooler in the infamous cold case.

“We are too emotional to talk right now because of everything we are going through,” a crying Margarita Castillo said through the door of her Elmhurst apartment Monday.

“You wouldn’t understand my pain.”

But, she said, “I want to thank the people who prayed for my daughter.”

Castillo, an illegal immigrant, would not answer when asked why she didn’t go to cops when little Angelica Castillo first went missing back in July 1991, setting off the case that baffled cops for decades until new information resulted in Saturday’s arrest of the baby’s uncle, Conrado Juarez, for the heinous crime.

Police sources this weekend told The Post that Angelica had been tied to a table and denied water in the family’s Queens apartment.

“[Juarez’s] intent was to rape her, but it turned into a murder because she screamed,” a law enforcement source said. “Even a grown woman would scream under the circumstances.

“To cover up the scream, he used the pillow to suffocate her to keep her quiet.”
Castillo, who still lives with the four youngest of her 10 children, also would not say if she has spoken to Juarez, who is now sitting in Rikers, charged with second-degree murder.

Asked what she thought would be an appropriate fate for the confessed child killer, Castillo said, “you can’t even describe a punishment.”

“We are just waiting for justice,” she said. “We are never going to have peace.”
The NYPD nabbed Juarez after getting new tips about Baby Hope on the 22nd anniversary of her death.

Margarita Castillo has said she did not know her daughter was murdered, and had long said that the child was spirited off to Mexico by her abusive father, Genaro Ramirez.

Cops were led this year to Margarita Castillo by an informant who recounted that one of Angelica’s siblings had talked to her about a dead sister. In August, detectives showed up at Castillo’s home and used a ruse to get her to lick an envelope which was tested for DNA.

The trail then led to Juarez, who was working as a dishwasher in the West Village.

He confessed during a marathon interrogation to killing little Angelica and stashing her body with the help of his now-dead sister.

http://nypost.com/2013/10/14/baby-hopes-mom-devastated-after-torture-revealed/

Conrado Juarez, accused killer of ‘Baby Hope,’ indicted by Manhattan grand jury, lawyer says
Juarez, 52, who police charged with second-degree murder, will appear in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday to be told about the grand jury's decision

By Shayna Jacobs / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Monday, October 21, 2013, 8:48 PM
Updated: Monday, October 21, 2013, 8:48 PM

Accused ‘Baby Hope’ killer Conrado Juarez has been indicted in connection with the notorious 1991 child slaying, his attorney confirmed Monday.

Juarez, a restaurant dishwasher, is due in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday to be formally notified that a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict him.

The exact charges won’t be revealed until a later date. Police charged Juarez with second-degree murder more than a week ago.

Juarez’s attorney, Michael Croce, said the indictment was anticipated, even though many questions in the case remain unanswered.

“This was not an unexpected event and I am waiting to hear whether or not there is any forensic evidence [linking Juarez to the killing], and I would like to see the statement he made to the police,” Croce said.

The lawyer has said that Juarez, who only speaks Spanish, was subjected by police to hours of interrogation that left him “sleep-deprived and exhausted” when he confessed on Saturday, Oct. 13.

“I understand that there is this alleged confession out there, but that means nothing to me given how long he’d been in custody being questioned by them,” Croce told the Daily News.

Police said Juarez confessed to smothering the 4 -year-old girl in an attempt at silencing her screams as he was sexually assaulting her in his sister’s apartment. The child was found stuffed inside an Igloo cooler that was discovered along the Henry Hudson Parkway in 1991.

In a jailhouse interview, Juarez claimed his confession was coerced. Police disputed that account, saying that a prosecutor was present during the interrogation and that parts of the proceeding were videotaped.

The diminutive accused killer, who is 5-foot-2 and 134 pounds, is being held without bail at Rikers Island.

Juarez, 52, was initially brought in for questioning on Oct. 12 after a tipster led detectives to Margarita Castillo, who was identified through DNA as the mother of Baby Hope — whose real name was Anjelica Castillo.

Margarita Castillo’s identity and that of her child were unknown for 22 years because she failed to come forward to report Anjelica missing. Castillo has said since investigators identified her that Anjelica and the girl’s sister were taken from her by their abusive father, who then abandoned them with Juarez’s sister in Astoria, Queens.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/accused-killer-indicted-baby-hope-slay-article-1.1492284#ixzz2iSbA8vGH

Now he denies killing her.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2511688/Relative-denies-murdering-year-old-Baby-Hope-22-years-ago-prosecutors-say-confessed-having-sex-smothering-pillow.html

POS.
William

With the baby's picture posted so many places after her little body was found I find it hard to believe that her mother didn't know.

She would have come forward had she not been here illegally I would imagine, and then this baby-killer/rapist would have been found and in prison 20 years ago. And maybe Anjelica's mother wouldn't have added 10 or so other children to her American household because she would have been deported and they'd have been Mexican citizens.

Sorry, just angry that this poor child was nameless all those years and it was probably over immigration status and that isn't right. How could her mother not report her missing, even if she did think the father took her. Also, what happened to the sister that was supposedly taken along with Anjelica?

Kudos to those wonderful Policemen that buried "Baby Hope" and had such an incredible stone made to memorialize her life.

Baby Hope murder suspect due in court Friday
Updated at 07:44 AM today

NEW YORK -- The man accused of killing the little girl known as Baby Hope is due in court Friday.

A hearing is scheduled in Manhattan for Conrado Juarez, who is charged in the 1991 killing of 4-year-old Anjelica Castillo.

Juarez was arrested back in October and is charged with second-degree murder.

Police say he confessed to sexually abusing and suffocating his young cousin but he claims the confession was coerced.
Baby Hope's body was found dumped along a highway in upper Manhattan.

The name was officially changed on her headstone last November, more than 20 years after her death.

Juarez spoke in a jailhouse interview during which he admitted helping a relative dump the body, but he says he is not the killer.

He expressed resignation over spending the rest of his life behind bars. His attorney says cops forced him to confess by depriving him of sleep.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=9516216