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Agencies

The 22-year mystery of Baby Hope, the girl whose body was found in a cool box dumped by the side of a road in Manhattan, may finally have been solved.
A cousin of the girl was arrested on Saturday after police said he had admitted sexually assaulting and smothering her.
Conrado Juarez, 52, was arraigned on a felony murder charge. He pleaded not guilty.
The arrest came after a tip-off led detectives to the sister of Baby Hope. It meant they were at last able to confirm the identity of the murdered girl from DNA on an envelope licked by her mother.
She was Anjelica Castillo, who was born in Queens in 1987 and was aged four when she died.
The case dates back to July 23, 1991, when the child's naked, malnourished corpse was found beside the Henry Hudson Parkway by construction workers.
It became an obsession for investigators, who nicknamed her Baby Hope. Hundreds attended a funeral for the unknown girl in 1993. Her body was exhumed for DNA testing in 2007 and 2011.
In July, on the 22nd anniversary of the discovery, police announced a US$12,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
Detective Jerry Giorgio, who had the case until he retired in the summer, remained confident the case would be solved. And assistant chief Joseph Reznick, who also worked on the case, said they never gave up.
"I think Baby Hope is the most accurate name we could have come up with," Reznick said. Officers often visited the Bronx grave where detectives from the 34th Precinct buried the girl. On a headstone, engraved with the name Baby Hope, there was also a plea for help: "The identity of this little girl is still unknown. If you have any information, please call … "
Giorgio left the NYPD and went to the Manhattan district attorney's cold case squad, from which he retired this year. "I missed the tipster call by a couple of weeks, damn it," he said.
The tip-off led police to Anjelica's sister, who told police she thought her sibling had been killed. She, too, has since died.
Detectives matched DNA from Anjelica to their mother after they obtained an envelope the mother had licked to seal it.
Detectives from the cold case squad then built a family tree.
They learned that Anjelica's father was an immigrant from Mexico, who moved to Queens.
He had three daughters, including Anjelica. The family split and Anjelica's father took custody of her and a sister, while her mother took the other daughter.
At the time she was killed, Anjelica was living in a home in Queens with other relatives, including the sister of the suspect Juarez. The mother didn't have custody of Anjelica at the time and details of her current whereabouts were not released.
Police closed in on the suspect and waited for him outside a Manhattan restaurant where he was a dishwasher. He admitted he noticed Anjelica while visiting the family apartment and that he killed her, police said.
"When she went motionless, he summoned his sister," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. Then Juarez's sister got the blue cool box, which still contained full cans of Coke.
They took a livery cab from Queens to Manhattan, where they dumped the cool box.
The New York Times, Associated Press


Cousin arrested over New York murder of Baby Hope, 22 years on

A poster circulated by Manhattan police in July to mark the 22nd anniversary of the discovery of Baby Hope's body. Photo: AP

Conrado Juarez

News

World

Cousin, 52, charged over gruesome murder of the four-year-old whose naked body was found dumped in cool box by roadside in Manhattan


The 22-year mystery of Baby Hope, the girl whose body was found in a cool box dumped by the side of a road in Manhattan, may finally have been solved.


Cousin arrested over New York murder of Baby Hope, 22 years on

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Cousin, 52, charged over gruesome murder of the four-year-old whose naked body was found dumped in cool box by roadside in Manhattan

Cousin, 52, charged over gruesome murder of the four-year-old whose naked body was found dumped in cool box by roadside in Manhattan