Relative arrested in ‘Baby Hope’ murder mystery

Conrado Juarez, 52, was arrested and arraigned on a felony murder charge. He pleaded not guilty.

Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Melissa Mourges, chief of the cold case unit and the original prosecutor on the case in 1991, told a judge at Juarez’s arraignment that he had admitted sexually abusing the child before smothering her. Juarez then enlisted the aid of his sister who helped him dispose of the body.

They were cousins of the girl’s father, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

The girl’s name, age and circumstances of her death were unknown for more than two decades. But earlier this week, police announced that a new tip and a DNA test had allowed them to finally identify the baby’s mother, a dramatic turnaround in one of the city’s more notorious cold cases.

On Saturday, they also revealed the girl’s name – Anjelica Castillo, aged four.

The child’s naked, malnourished corpse was discovered on July 23, 1991, beside the Henry Hudson Parkway by construction workers who smelled something rotten. Detectives thought she might have been suffocated but had few other clues as to what happened.

The case became an obsession for some investigators who nicknamed the girl “Baby Hope”.

Hundreds of people attended a funeral for the unknown girl in 1993. Her body was exhumed for DNA testing in 2007, and then again in 2011.

Mr Kelly called the arrest a superb case of detective work, and said he was proud of his officers.

“For me, it makes you proud
to be a member of this organisation – they were unrelenting,” he said.