Manhattan Female Toddler Kidnapped By Illegal Immigrant Found in Cooler in 1991
In 1991 the remains of a young female child were found in a cooler in Manhattan. The discovery shocked and appalled New Yorkers, who spent the next months grieving the anonymous child after hundreds flocked from around the city to attend her public funeral. The girl’s name was Anjelica Castillo, but until recently, the world knew her as “Baby Hope”. Her story is gut-wrenching, and utterly sickening, but unfortunately far from unique.
The Girl and Her Disappearance:
Anjelica Castillo was a Mexican-American girl living in Astoria, Queens, New York. Her abusive father, Genaro Ramirez, took two of her siblings and disappeared, all while her mother Margarita believed he took Anjelica and her sister and returned to Mexico. In reality, he gave Anjelica to stay with her adult female cousin Balvina Juarez-Ramirez. She suddenly disappeared in July of 1991, but her mother never reported her missing, likely due to a combination of her and other family members being illegal immigrants and fearing that if it was discovered during the investigation, they would get deported, as well as not being able to speak English.
The Discovery:
Anjelica’s body was found on July 23, 1991, inside a navy blue cooler along the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan. The body was found badly decomposed. So much so that identification was initially impossible. She was placed in a fetal position with her hands together, wrapped in garbage bags, and placed inside the cooler which was filled with unopened soda cans, and water (presumably ice, before). Examiners of the scene determined a number of things about “Baby Hope”: She was likely Hispanic, had dark, wavy hair which was tied back, was malnourished (weighing only about 28 pounds), she was a victim of sexual abuse, and she likely died around July 18th. She was determined to be between 3 and 5 years old. After the examination, the case remained unsolved. Police provided the money to have the body buried after a public funeral, which 200 people attended, was held, where an officer on the case gave a eulogy.
Investigating the Murder:
After the discovery of the remains, an eyewitness told police that he saw a Hispanic man and woman carrying a cooler in the same location where the body was found, before its discovery, around when the murder was estimated to have occurred. A few months later, suggestive photos of a female child turned up in New Jersey, which some believed were “Baby Hope”, based on matching descriptions. The body was exhumed in 2006 and 2011 to collect DNA information, but nothing of note came up until 2013 when a tip cracked the case after it was reopened. The tip came from an anonymous woman who reported that she had overheard a conversation two years before, between a mother and another person regarding her daughter’s disappearance. Investigators followed up on the tip and reached Margarita Castillo, and DNA comparison confirmed that she was indeed the mother of “Baby Hope”, a.k.a. Anjelica Castillo. Once the investigators confirmed Anjelica’s identity, the search extended to how she ended up that way. Their search led them to the names of her paternal cousins, Conrado Juarez, and the now-deceased Balvina. Conrado was found working as a dishwasher in a Manhattan restaurant. The investigators went to interview him, and the interrogation yielded exactly what investigators were looking for. Juarez was charged with felony murder, and police believe that Anjelica may not have been his only victim. Juarez denied committing the crime in a later trial, telling the court that he was coerced into confessing. He also gave them another story, wherein Anjelica died falling down the stairs. He pleaded “not guilty” when charged with second-degree murder. Juarez died of pancreatic cancer in 2018, while in police custody.
Final Thoughts:
It’s always horrifying to hear about small children in such terrible situations. Who can tell what goes through the mind of a killer? While horrific, perhaps her death was a mercy. One can only imagine what kind of damage is done to the body and mind of a child that young in such a situation, especially when the perpetrator is a trusted family member. Cases like this can often make us see the world as a horrible place and have little hope for humanity. But we should remember that thankfully, cases like this are outliers and not the rule. They are outliers, not the majority of cases. We should always have hope for a better future. We can change our world so that cases like this don’t happen as often, and hopefully, we can stop it altogether.