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29 March 2024

'Picnic cooler' killer to cool his heels

The grave of "Baby Hope," an unidentified girl whose body was found murdered in a picnic cooler 22 years ago, is adorned with flowers at St. Raymond Cemetery in New York, October 11, 2013. New York police have at last identified a little girl who was murdered, sexually abused and stuffed into a picnic cooler in Manhattan. She was found on July 23, 1991. New York police officials confirmed the identity of the girl's mother through DNA testing on October 8, 2013, and also identified the father. The family is Mexican and her mother was too frightened to come forward after her daughter's death, because her husband was abusive, local media reports said. The girl's father, who is believed to be either in New York or Mexico, is now the prime suspect. Baby Hope, two years after she was found, was laid to rest in a donated plot. (AFP)

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By AFP

New York police said Saturday they have arrested a man who confessed to sexually abusing and murdering a little girl found stuffed in a picnic cooler 22 years ago.

Local media identified the suspect, Conrado Juarez of the Bronx, as a cousin of the four-year-old victim, who was named for the first time as Anjelica Castillo.

Police said Juarez, 52, was arrested late Friday near the restaurant where he was working in Manhattan, and has been charged with second-degree murder.

New York police chief Ray Kelly said Juarez had confessed to the crime.

"Early this morning, Juarez admitted that he sexually assaulted Anjelica, that he smothered her and then disposed of the body with the aid of his sister (Balvina Juarez-Ramirez), who is now deceased," Kelly said.

He paid tribute to police officers, who he said worked tirelessly to track down the little girl's murderer.

The astonishing break in the case came thanks to a tip that enabled police to track down the girl's now adult sister and her mother.

For more than two decades, Castillo was known only as "Baby Hope," the name given to her by detectives who buried her in 1993, after none of her relatives came forward.

Her father had previously been the prime suspect.

The killing of the emaciated girl had shocked New York for its brutality and lack of clues.

Juarez, who was 30 at the time of the murder, saw Castillo in the hallway of the residence he shared with a number of relatives, according to Kelly.

After the crime, Juarez and his sister took a black livery cab and dumped the girl's body inside a cooler in a wooded area in Manhattan.

The body was found on July 23, 1991 inside the blue and white cooler left on an embankment at the Henry Hudson Parkway. it had first been bound and wrapped inside a plastic bag.

Kelly acknowledged that the case had also been aided by advances in DNA technology over the past two decades.

"Today, NYPD investigators have given young Anjelica her due justice," Kelly said.