Criminology - Baby Hope

Episode Date: May 2, 2021

Baby Hope was the name given to a four-year-old little girl found dead in a cooler near the Henry Hudson Parkway. Baby Hope's body was found by construction workers in Manhattan, New York, in 1991. Authorities found witnesses but were unable to figure out who Baby Hope was or what exactly had happened to her. It wasn't until 2013 that police caught a break in the case and the pieces started to fall into place. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the case of Baby Hope. Police learned that her real name was Anjelica Castillo. As they unraveled the mystery of her identity, they also zeroed in a suspect in her murder. It turned out that Baby Hope was victimized by relatives, the very people that should be there to help keep a little girl like Anjelica safe. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 157 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford, what's going on with you today? Not too much. Just excited to get into this case. This is one that's been a horrible unsolved case for a long time. And I'm happy that it was solved. Yeah, a pretty well-known case. And I think,

especially in the New York area, but you could say nationwide, even worldwide. A lot of people have heard of it. And I think anytime you have a case like this that gets some notoriety and is unsolved for a period of time and then police figure it out, you know, that is a huge win. And, you know, the true crime community celebrates those types of things. things because let's face it and you and i have done a number of cases where you know they they've remained unsolved for 50 60 years so you know you have to look at these types where the case is solved and you really do kind of have to take a step back and and celebrate it as a big win we have some new patreon support morph so let's give our shoutouts we had darcy bisbee lindy wrangell

and Darby Thunderball. So that's some great support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, we can't thank you enough. That support goes a long way to helping put the show out every week. And to anyone that is considering supporting us, please go to Patreon.com slash criminology to sign up. All right, buddy.

So we have all that out of the way. It's time to get into our case. You know, recently on criminology, we have celebrated the use of forensic genesis, genetic genealogy, we've talked about a number of cases that have been moved along or even solved by the technique. I think it's important to remember. There are still many cases, even cold cases that can be solved by good old-fashioned police work. Sometimes all it takes, even decades later, after a crime is committed, is for one person to call in a tip. In 2013,

Police reopened the case of an unidentified child murder victim who had been exhumed to search for new or additional DNA. Not once, but twice. But ultimately it was a tip that led investigators to crack the case. We're talking about the case of four-year-old Angelica Castillo, who for a long time was known only as Baby Hope. On July 23rd, 1991, construction work. workers in Manhattan, New York, working on the Henry Hudson Parkway, found a navy blue igloo cooler. One of the workers, Joe Rizzo, tipped it over and opened it with his shovel. It smelled, and it was filled with water and maggots, and it had something inside it wrapped in trash bags.

Using his shovel, he gently cut the bag open, and he thought he was looking at rotting meat, until he saw what he knew was a human ear. To their shock, the workers had found the decomposing body of a child. who was obviously a victim of foul play. She was bent in the fetal position with her head on her knees, and her hands had been bound with both nylon rope and the cord from a set of Venetian blinds. Her body was nude.

She had been placed in a trash bag and stuffed into the 30-quart cooler along with unopened cans of coke. The cooler was full of water, which may or may not have been ice at one time. The cooler had been dumped off the Henry Hudson Parkway and discovered around 10.45 a.m. The horrified workers summoned police to come investigate the grizzly find. Authorities determine that the young girl was three foot two between three and five years old,

but malnourished at just 25 pounds. An average five-year-old should weigh around 40 pounds, and even a three-year-old is normally in the 30-pound range. If she was at the older side of their age estimation, she would have been quite noticeably underweight for her. her age. Police believe that it was possible she may not have started kindergarten yet. In that case, people like teachers or other caregivers might not have been around to spot or report the neglected child. A medical examination revealed that the toddler had no history of broken bones, but there was

evidence of sexual assault. Anne Seaman was found in her rectum. Initially, police believe that Hope had been dumped in the wooded area off Henry Hudson Parkway sometime between July 13th and July 22nd, up to a week and a half before her remains were found. But the medical examiner estimated that Baby Hope died on or around July 18th, narrowing the window for investigators of when the cooler with Hope's body and it was actually discarded. Most likely sometime between July 18th and July 20th. Though the case would have automatically been treated as a homicide due to the bindings and the method of disposal, it was immediately clear to investigators that there was a child rapist and killer on the loose.

The toddler wasn't found by the workers until decomposition was already becoming advanced and it made her face unrecognizable. Because of this, police couldn't photograph her face in an effort to appeal to the public for helping identify. her. Investigators did release what little information they had, which was that the little girl was a light-skinned Hispanic toddler with dark, wavy brown hair, worn in a ponytail. They felt she was most likely from the Bronx. They were able to take fingerprints from the little girl, but they were very poor quality. It took some time, but her cause of death came back as likely as fixiation, with no signs of strangulation. Authorities would come to call her baby hope. This was because they had hope, hope that someone would call with a tip that led to her being identified, or hope that

they would somehow find her killer. Detectives wasted no time, searching the area, looking for potential witnesses. One witness they spoke with did reveal that they saw two people with a cooler near the scene where Baby Hope was found. Unfortunately, the witness was driving by in a car, so their view was pretty limited. Still, they did provide some helpful details. They recounted seeing a well-dressed Hispanic couple, a man and a woman in their 40s with a cooler near the scene around the day of July 14th.

And I think that fact alone is something that we have to take a step back and talk about. The medical examiner has already narrowed it down to the 18th through the 22nd. Now a witness has come forward saying, okay, they saw these people around the 14. Seems to be contradicting already what the medical examiner has stated. The witness said that the man and woman were both about five foot six and each held one handle of the cooler as they walked northbound along the highway. This witness identified herself only as Judy Brown, a fake name given because it's a She didn't want to be involved. All police knew was that she was from the Westchester area. She never called back.

Police were excited by this early tip, and they thought more tips would come in. They hoped they would soon have a missing person's report of a child that matched Hope's description, but none came. Authorities quickly advertised a $12,000 combined reward. $2,000 was a reward offered by crime stoppers upon the arrested indictment of those responsible and the remaining $10,000 was offered by the NYPD for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator or perpetrators. Examination of the cooler didn't help police because the rough surface of the igloo cooler made obtaining fingerprints impossible. More if I think it's important to talk about the area of New York City where Baby Hope was found. We're not talking about a huge area as far as size, but we are talking about.

talking about a lot of people. In 1990, just the Washington Heights and Inwood neighborhoods within Manhattan had a population of almost 200,000 people. Washington Heights was deeply impacted by the crack cocaine epidemic like the rest of New York City was in the 80s and 90s. In 1989, Washington Heights was called the crack capital of America by the New York Times. In 1990, the third 34th Precinct, which covers Washington Heights and Inwood, investigated 103 murders and 1,130 felony assaults. Solving crimes in the area was not helped by police and citizen relations. Detectives and officers often noted that witnesses and other residents were uncooperative.

The people there didn't trust the police because they felt there was corruption in the 34th precinct in 1991. The 34th precinct investigated 119 murders up from the year before. And by 1992, the AP reported that Washington Heights was, quote, home to most of what's bad about New York City living. Though the 34th precinct was one of, if not the busiest precincts in New York City, they never gave up on Baby Hope's case. Police tried very hard to find someone who knew Baby Hope.

They felt that surely there was someone out there missing this child. They used bilingual flyers and visited schools, hospitals, and CPS offices to make sure each social worker was aware of the case. Exactly three weeks after the witness saw the couple on the parkway, authorities shut down the road and handed out flyers. They canvassed passers by and hope that if it was someone's Sunday routine to be on the parkway, they'd catch them again and get their statement. But all of their early attempts to find clues were fruitless.

In October 1991, sexually suggestive pullroids of a new child were found on Route 46 in New Jersey, near the George Washington Bridge. Authorities believed it was possible that the child in the photo may have been Baby Hope, based on the features of the child. But there was nothing solid to link the photos of that child to Baby Hope's case. And soon, Hope's case started to go cold. In 1993, police provided the money for Baby Hope to finally have a proper public funeral after deciding her body could be released for burial. They ordered a headstone, which read Baby Hope July 23, 1991, Because We Care.

Her casket was donated and the wife of one of the detectives bought her a white dress to be buried in. Hundreds of people attended the funeral of Baby Hope when she was laid to rest in St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. Following her burial, authorities tried to stake out and watch Baby Hope's grave to see if anyone unusual or possibly a potential suspect visited. detectives themselves often visited Baby Hope's gravesite as a reminder not to give up on her case. Two separate times in 2006 and 2011, police exhumed Baby Hope's body to get DNA evidence and reexamine her body to create new reconstructions of her face. Three different reconstructions were made by forensic artist to try and help the public identify Baby Hope. After years of police trying and failing to ID relatives,

the baby Hope. It led to many people wondering why. No one early on in the investigation reported a four-year-old child missing. This led to speculation that her parents were involved in her death, and they would have no incentive to a reporter missing to police. No cases or missing persons reports ever matched to Baby Hope. It was starting to look like no one had ever known she existed. In 2013, the police decided to take a fresh look into Baby Hope's investigative. ahead of the 22nd anniversary of her murder, and authorities pushed heavily to have all the info about the case released to the public. They were hopeful that someone would come forward with new information.

They republicized the monetary reward and asked the people of New York to share what they knew. The different reconstructions of Baby Hope were shared again, and posters were put up on lamp posts and bulletin boards. the renewed efforts by police paid off. It turned out someone did know Baby Hope and had been missing her for a long time. Police received a tip that someone had overheard a conversation where a person was discussing a missing child at some point years earlier, maybe as early as 2008. The woman who was from Manhattan recalled being in a laundromat when her acquaintance told her that she remembered seeing her sister's dead body in a plastic bag in a fridge in the Bronx.

The tipster wondered if this woman was Baby Hope's older step-sister. She thought it was too odd to be true. And if it had been true, the woman should have gone to police instead of telling her. So I think she kind of brushed it off. The anonymous tipster didn't think anything of it again until July 2013. on the anniversary of Baby Hope's discovery when she saw the new push for information. She confided in a coworker that she thought she may have information about Baby Hope, and the coworker told her to turn the information over to authorities,

which thankfully she did the day after the 22nd anniversary. She called New York Crime Stoppers and relayed Baby Hope's presumed stepsisters' first name. The caller didn't want to tip money, which at the time had increased from the original $12,000 to be about $20,000. She didn't even take a tip number that would later allow her to collect it. While hesitant and afraid for her own safety, the caller understood that she was possibly the child's only chance for justice. since in the 22 years prior, not a single person had said a thing. So more of a couple things here, I think, to dissect. First of all, you know, making the decision to come forward.

I don't know that that's as easy as some people might think it is. I think there's a natural hesitancy on the part of many people to want to get involved in something, right? And even here, this woman was hesitant. She was afraid for her own safety. I mean, number one, there's a killer somewhere. And now you potentially are attaching your name to this case. Okay. Can you make the argument that a killer, if they found out who you were, would want to come after you?

I think you can. or at least I think that's a fear that runs through a lot of people's minds. But then you have to balance that with the possibility that the information you have solving this cold case and, you know, really shedding light on a very mysterious death. And the fact that this woman didn't want what, you know, would have amounted to about $20,000, You know, all of that's very interesting to think about, to talk about. Yeah, that comes off as pretty selfless. It's good to know that there's people still in the world that do things because it's the right thing to do and not just to collect a reward.

Yeah, I mean, this woman could have easily collected the reward. Nobody would have thought bad about her. But I think you're right. It's selfless in the fact that she wanted to provide this information. But I think you can also get the sense that she was a little scared. You know, you have to be somewhat fearful if you're going to just give up $20,000. I mean, most tip lines have a way to keep you anonymous, but, you know, with a lot of media coverage, you're in New York City.

Is the thought there that it's going to get out that I provided this information if I go that. I go that far into the process. That's the only thing I can think of. Investigators followed this lead, and were eventually led to Christina Castillo, who lived above the laundromat where the tipster was when she originally heard what she later reported to police. The investigation then led from Christina to Margarita Castillo, a seamstress from the Bronx, whose daughter Angelica was missing.

Margarita long believed that Angelica had been taken to Mexico by her father, but it turns up that Angelica never made it to Mexico. Margarita Castillo was tracked down by authorities in Elmhurst and Queens, about 10 miles from the scene where Baby Hope was found. Detectives first asked Margarita about something fake, while they didn't suspect

her of the murder of Baby Hope due to the presence of semen. They didn't want to rule her out too soon as possibly being involved. Detectives used a photo of an unrelated man and asked if she knew him and eventually asked her to sign a statement swearing she didn't know them.

man, and they had her seal it in an envelope. They used this envelope to obtain her DNA. Margarita listed eight children when detectives talked to her. They were all daughters. Two were twins. They came back and interviewed her daughters and got them to sign a statement and seal the envelopes as well to obtain their DNA. Investigators took DNA from the envelopes, specifically from the envelope Margarita licked, and her DNA was a match to baby hope. It was now confirmed that Baby Hope was actually Angelica Castillo, Margarita's four-year-old daughter, who went missing in 1991.

Investigators then told her the news. Margarita Castillo was heartbroken to learn that Baby Hope was her long-lost daughter. She was initially reluctant to speak publicly, but she eventually was able to explain that she didn't realize that Angelica was missing. She just thought she had been kept from her in Mexico. When she and Angelica's father, Hennaro, had split up, Margarita was still afraid of him due to previous spousal abuse. When he took Angelica and her sister, presumably to Mexico,

Margarita didn't fight him. She also didn't go to police since she was not only afraid of Hennaro, but of the police as well. Margarita didn't speak English. And not all the members of her household were in the U.S. legally at the time. She was afraid that the police wouldn't understand or listen to what she was saying and instead focus on their immigration status. So she never reported Hennaro taking off with the children. Margarita's other missing daughter, Maribel, was eventually returned to her by a relative. Conrado Warez, but Angelica was never returned. Conrado Juarez was Hinerro's nephew. She assumed Angelica was somewhere safe in Mexico with a new life,

but as time went on, Margarita had the thought that Hennaro had sold Angelica, but she never imagined her actual fate, even now. She still doesn't know exactly where Angelica. Angelica's father, Hennaro, is. Margarita is a native of Pueblo, Mexico. She was with a man with the last name Dasa from age 13 and had three children with him. They separated, and she met Hennaro-Ramirez. They crossed the border together near San Diego in 1985. Margarita was granted citizenship in 1986 due to amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Angelica was born two years later. Margarita and Hennaro split in 1989, and he took their three children to his cousin, Balvina Ramirez. She lived in an apartment in Queens. When Margarita went to visit them, she and Hannaero got into an argument that turned into a light physical altercation. Hennaro insisted he was keeping their children and slammed the door in Margarita's face, and she was able to take just one child, Lorencita, with her that day. Hennaro actually got kicked out of the apartment due to drinking. and leaving Maribel and Angelica in the care of Belvina and their uncle Conrado and Aunt Effahina.

Margarita claimed that she did confront Conrado once, asking where her daughters were. He told Margarita that Belvina said the kids were theirs now. By the time Margarita returned to confront them again, they had all moved out of the apartment. Margarita learned where her family had relocated and visited again around 1995 after she heard that Balvina, Vena had passed away. Her visit served two purposes. She went to send her condolences to Balvinas family, but also to try and get information about her daughters. Conrado told her that she needed to pay for all the time they had supported her daughters before he would give her any information. When Conrado showed up to meet Margarita, he had only one of her daughters with him, Maribel.

Eventually, he told her that Angelica was dead, but that he had only learned of her passing after he had returned from a visit. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved

until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC, audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. To Mexico and did not know what happened to her. He would not tell Margarita any information about her death or where she was buried. When police questioned Margarita, she didn't list Maribel, but her daughters mentioned her while Margarita wasn't home and detectives were able to find and speak to her. It may seem shady to exclude the one daughter, who may have known

anything, but she wasn't being asked about Angelica. And she also later mentioned an older son who she didn't list for detectives. When Angelica's father, Hanaro, headed to Mexico, he left four-year-old Angelica and three-year-old Maribel alone in Queens with their paternal cousins, Ephahena, Juarez, and Balvina, Juarez, and their brother, Conrado Juarez, who was 30 years old at the time. When investigators first went to Conrado Juarez's home, his daughter lied to them. She told authorities that Conrado had been living in Mexico for the past 12 years, but his wife pointed them in the direction of his work in downtown Manhattan. Investigators went to his workplace where he was a dishwasher and they were finally able to interrogate him.

Detective started by asking Conrado if he knew a man named Hennaro Ramirez. He admitted that he did. Hennaro was his uncle. He said he didn't like him, but he did know him. He expanded on his family and mentioned that Hennaro had two daughters. Conrato was interviewed by detectives for hours, and he confessed to them that he knew that Baby Hope was Angelica Castillo from the moment he saw the sketch. It looked just like her in his opinion.

After hours of interrogation, he crumbled and admitted he was involved in disposing of Angelica's remains. His first story was that he simply helped Belvena get rid of Angelica's body after he found her dead in the hallway of the apartment. Police pressured Conrado, confronting him with evidence that he raped Angelica. They explained that DNA evidence, a technology that was still in its infancy at the time Angelica was found, was now absolutely irrefutable. They told Conrado that they would know if the seaman they found was his. What they didn't tell Conrado was that they didn't have any DNA evidence belong to the suspect in Angelica's case. The only test that they had in 1991 could reveal the presence of semen, but not who it belonged to, and they no longer had the semen to test it.

Conrato did admit to raping Angelica in what he called, quote, having sex with her, but said it had nothing to do with her death and happened before. before whatever killed her happened. It was days before she had died. He also said that he'd never done anything with Maribel or any other young girl, only with Angelica. Eventually, and after police suggested, he may not have been completely in control because he was drunk, Conrados spilled everything.

According to Conrado's confession, one night he was drunk and took Angelica into his room where he sexually assaulted her and then smothered her in the spare bedroom of Balvina's apartment. Conrado claimed that he suffocated Angelica with a pillow as he sexually assaulted her. When she stopped moving, he called Balvina from another room and they began to cover up what happened. He said it was actually Balvina who grabbed the Igloo cooler and it was her idea to get rid of Angelica's body secretly. They took a cab with the cooler to Manhattan from Balvina's Astoria apartment. and Conrato dumped it down an embankment into the woods. This confession to stunned detectives was videotaped.

Conrato changed his story, though. His final version in the confession included that Angelica was coming out of the bathroom into the hallway when he saw her and an altercation occurred. He said it was an accident and he had suffocated her with a pillow. The confession here was tricky because he was. because he kept using the Spanish word for headboard. When asked how she was suffocated, investigators and translators had to draw a bed and pillows,

and everyone there agreed that Conrado was talking about a pillow. His confession came after almost two hours and eight minutes of the taped interrogation. Conrato went on to tell police about abuse of the girls, that Effahina knew that Belvina would tie in. Angelica and Maribel up, that she would starve them. When investigators questioned Ephahena about Angelica, she didn't deny any of the abuse. She did recall the night that Angelica was murdered and said she heard a loud noise and asked her sister through the thin wall separating their bedrooms, what happened?

Belvena apparently said nothing happened and mentioned that she was going to the park in Manhattan in the morning. Effahina told police that she had warned Belvina not to leave the girls alone with Conrad. because she had seen him act inappropriately towards other young girls. She noticed he liked to kiss them on the mouth and other things like that. Still, neither woman did anything to protect Angelica or Maribel. By the time the two were tracked down by authorities, Valvina was deceased and Conrado was a 52-year-old father of four.

He had no criminal record, but did enter the country illegally. Conrato pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and was held without bail in Rikers Island. Four days after his arrest, New York Times reporter Francis Robles interviewed Conrado. He told Ms. Robles that he did not kill Angelica. And even though he told the police that he put a pillow over her face, that's not actually what happened. He also told her that Balvina called him and told him that Angelica was wrong. running and fell down the stairs and died. It was Balvina that asked for his help in disposing of Angelica's body, not the other way around.

Since Balvina had passed away, there was no way for her to corroborate or contradict Conrado's version of events. This is likely the reason why Conradot's stories pointed the blame at Balvina. He also claimed that Balvina asked him to help. move something. In this version, when he asked what was in the cooler and why they were leaving it in a part, she got angry and wouldn't answer. In another version, she called him at work on a cell phone. And when he got to the apartment, Angelica was dead, apparently from falling down the stairs, but he did help put her into the cooler and dispose of it. He said he should have just walked away.

We've talked in previous episodes about false confessions, as well as coerced confessions. Conrado confessed to the things that all lined up. Nothing that he said contradicted the evidence other than when he was trying to shift the blame entirely. All the times he claimed to be involved, the details were right. Angelica's sister also remembered the trash bags and her were being stuffed into the igloo cooler. It's important to note that in the versions where Belvena called him for help after Angelica's death, a cell phone was involved. Remember, this happened in 1991.

When police asked Conrado why he didn't go to police if what he was saying was true, he replied by saying, who would believe me? So we've got a lot of stuff here, Morf, with Conrado and his confessions. He's got a number of different versions. You know, some definitely shift the blame away from him and on to Balvina.

and like we mentioned at that time, Balvina had already passed away. So it's really easy to point a finger at someone who's dead and can't, you know, defend herself or can't contradict your story. That's one thing that that kind of jumped out at me. The other was this, the one version of events that involved a cell phone. You know, in 1991, I just don't buy it. Cell phones were still fairly rare at that point. I don't think this was a family of means.

I don't think they had a lot of money. I can't imagine that they would spend X amount of their disposable income on a cell phone in 1991 when they were pretty expensive. Yeah, I think it was a slip up that maybe had police doubting this story from him. Yeah, because if you think about it, they're talking to him in 2000. 2013. Okay, well, cell phones are everywhere. Everyone has one. But is he thinking back to 1991 or is he just telling a story and using a cell phone in it because they were ubiquitous at the time? You know, I think those are the types of things that, you know, you really need to analyze in a person's story and a person's statement. I think he messed up. And, you know,

and tripped himself up is the way that I see it. Yeah, I think that's one of the problems when you're lying and trying to tell new lies to cover up other ones. You start going down a road where you forget a simple fact, like it was unlikely that you had a cell phone back then. So thankfully, the police didn't buy it. In 2015, Conrado was moved to the Rockland County Correctional Facility due to safety concerns. his trial for the second-degree murder of Angelica Castillo was later set for March 2019. But Conrado never made it to trial. And Angelica, aka Baby Hope, never truly received justice.

Conrato died in November 2018 from pancreatic cancer. He lived to be 57 years old. Valvina was never held accountable. for any possible role in Angelica's death or disposal because she passed away. Police believe that Angelica was tortured. During her short life at the hands of Balvina and Corrado, police wonder if there were any other children who were abused or murdered in the apartment. Angelica's sister Maribel was there too.

She claims to have witnessed Angelica's abuse and torture as well as enduring her own. She too deserved justice. So I do think more if it's sad anytime you have this happened. So police believe that, you know, Conrado was responsible. He's due to face trial. He's due to face a jury of his peers. But he died before that ever happened. Now, what I couldn't figure out or what really jumped out at me was the time period from

2013 to when his trial was supposed to start in 2019. That's six years. And I know trials sometimes take a long time to get underway and there are motions and there are things that push them out. But, you know, six years is a very long time. Yeah, one of the things the courts in this country are supposed to provide are for quick and speedy trials. But that didn't happen here for whatever reason. Yeah, and we couldn't find the reason. You know, I don't know. I couldn't find the details of what happened during that six-year period. But I think it's very sad.

You think about, you know, usually what, a year or two at the most to, you know, get to trial. And if that would have happened, he would have still been alive. Now, we don't know if a jury would have found him guilty or not, but let's assume that, they would have. Well, now you've got it on the record. But because it took so long, he died, he was never found guilty. I do think there's a sadness in that if he was responsible for this, which, you know, I can't call him guilty because he wasn't found guilty, but you'd have to admit that all the signs, all of the, you know, his confession and everything kind of pointed to the fact that he was responsible.

Angelica's sister, Lorencita Ramirez, didn't know until she was 11 years old that she had a missing sister. Maribel was actually present the night that Angelica was murdered. She remembered falling asleep with Angelica one night, as usual, but waking up to hear people talking. She recalled hearing the words, put her in, and she doesn't fit. She also remembered seeing trash bags. She fell back asleep, and when she woke up,

Angelica and the plastic bags were gone. She would never see her sister Angelica again. When she was returned to her mother's care, she told her mother that Angelica had disappeared. Detective Jerry Georgia, retired from the Manhattan DA Cold Case Squad just weeks before. The tip about Angelica came in that broke the case wide open. He expressed disappointment or frustration that he hadn't been there for the call that came so soon after he retired. he had worked on Baby Hope's case for 20 years. However, due to what he saw as inaction on Margarita's part,

he also expressed that he had no sympathy for her. Joe Rizzo, the construction worker who found Angelica's body in the cooler, stated that he had no feelings of sympathy either for the mother. Many people throughout the years have shared his sentiment. Even Conrado. Conrado claimed to police that, Margarita never visited her daughters or even asked about them, but he also claimed that he never abused either of them. So I think especially when you talk about karate and the things that

he has said, you have to take all of that with a grain of salt. I think you have to be very skeptical of anything that that has ever come out of his mouth. Margarita admits that she made a mistake by not going to the police and reporting Angelica missing. She has said publicly that she would ask Angelica for forgiveness for this today if she could. Many others are understanding of Margarita's situation as a former illegal immigrant, single mother, and domestic violence victim. They feel as though she was simply afraid. Detective Giorgio seemed to believe that Angelica would have died,

sooner or later, even if she hadn't been murdered due to the way she had been treated and her condition at the time she was murdered. He felt that Angelica would have faced long-term starvation and abuse at the hands of Corrado and Balvina and maybe others. And I think more if this is another point of discussion. And I waited, I could have brought it up earlier when we were talking about Margarita not going to police. I think you're going to have a lot of people that are split on that and her actions. Some are going to have the sentiments that the detective had, which are she made a huge mistake. And that mistake possibly, most likely played a role in her daughter's death. And then you're going to have the other side of the coin, which is some people

are going to understand the position that she was in. They're going to sympathize with that position. Can't go to the police because of the immigration status of the family. And, you know, when you think about that, that's a very tough position to be in. As someone who is in the country illegally, and a crime is perpetrated against you, your family, someone, but you can't report it. Because the minute you report it, the minute you involve yourself with police, what's going to happen?

They're going to find out that you're in the country illegally and most likely you're going to be deported. I think that's something that we don't often think about, talk about when it comes to immigration. But it's a real thing. Yeah, and I think that she had a really unique set of stories. circumstances that many of us can't imagine being in or having to deal with those circumstances. I think you went through some of the circumstances that Margarita was dealing with. So unless somebody

is dealing with the circumstances of worrying about contacting the police because you're in the country illegally, you've been a victim of domestic abuse or living in an area where people, as we said, don't interact and trust in the police. to begin with, unless you're in that situation like she was in, I don't think you can fairly say what you would do, how you would react. According to both Conrado and Maribel's recollections, Angelica and Maribel were often tied up in the Queen's apartment, while initially stating that Belvina only spank them occasionally when they deserved it. Conrado eventually claimed that Belvina would tie them up when she was going to be gone for work. And apparently, according to him,

she was almost always gone. Conrado described to detectives how the children were tied up and he actually acted it out for them using rope at their request, tying the rope around their necks in a loop with the other end tied to the doorknob so that trying

to lay down or move around would choke the children. Because of this, the girls were forced to sit up. Conrado would later claim that Angelica had to be tied up because of her behavior. He claimed she was acting out and hitting her sister. Through the interviews with Conrado, it was revealed that young Maribel, just three years old at the time,

accompanied Balvina and Conrado to dispose of the cooler that morning. Conrado was unaware that Maribel knew anything about the situation that night. He told investigators that she didn't know her sister had been murdered. Thankfully, he was wrong, and the little girl grew up to help solve her sister's murder. If the pair knew that Maribel would later reveal details about the crime, she too may have been murdered to silence her. Merybel was so young at the time that Angelica was killed. She hardly recalled either Balvina or Ephahina.

She didn't remember their names, but it was clear that she remembers Balvina as the bad one. And Ephahina as the good one. She remembers the bad one tying them up, throwing scraps of food at them as if they were animals. She and Angelica had no beds, no comfortable bedding. they slept with plastic tablecloths. Maribel's final memory of Angelica alive was the two of them tied to the table. Angelica told her not to fall asleep, but she did. She remembers a man walking away with her, but she was smiling.

It's unsure of how much of the memory was true, but it's comforting that she remembers Angelica smiling instead of remembering her screaming in terror. This case could have possibly been solved early on. If Margarita hadn't been afraid to call the police, she may have reported Angelica missing, and an investigation and arrest may have happened soon enough to hold both Conrado and Belvena accountable before they passed away. Baby Hope was exhumed twice for DNA and other evidence collection, and this was a perfect case for genetic genealogy. Angelica supposedly had nine siblings in total, and it was her own cousin that killed her. It's cases like this where DNA samples from databases like Jedmatch come in so handy.

In 2013, when Angelical is finally identified, forensic genetic genealogy wasn't even a proven technique yet. But if she had gone unidentified, that technique most certainly may have been used in the future to solve the case. I do think more if this is a case that highlights the importance of genetic genealogy, even though it wasn't used to sort of. solve the mystery of baby hope. In this instance, we luckily had a witness that was able to recall info two decades after the murder. If she hadn't been able to remember anything about what happened to her sister that night, the murder of Angelica Castillo, aka Baby Hope, may not have been solved.

The only other way that her murder likely could have been solved is if police would have eventually done genetic genealogy. on Angelica and then built a family tree. Then once all the family members were accounted for and questioned, an entire investigation would have been undertaken, hopefully eventually leading to Conrado. By the time all that happened, though, he may have already died from cancer.

It's important to note that while the tip that a woman saw her dead sister in her fridge in the Bronx led to breaking the baby hope case, the tip wasn't fully correct. The crime didn't happen in the Bronx. And it's believed Angelica was only in a portable cooler, not a fridge. Investigators were lucky that Angelica's remains were found when they were. If Conrado and Belvina had hidden the cooler even a little bit better, Baby Hope may have never been discovered.

To this day, the area under Henry Hudson Parkway's undeveloped woods. Margarita was thankful for the detectives who worked on Angelica's case. They never gave up on her. and they were the ones who gave her the name Baby Hope rather than Jane Doe and a number. When this case was solved, Angelica Castillo got her name back. She was born on April 24, 1987, at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York, just 10 miles from where she was found and where she was laid to rest. She was just two years old when Margarita saw her for the last time.

She loved music and she loved to dance. Angelica's headstone has been updated to reflect her name. Angelica Castillo, but the original inscription, Baby Hope, still remains. So more if we said it right up front, right? This is a fairly well-known case. I mean, I think a lot of people, especially around the New York area, will be familiar with the case of Baby Hope. I don't know if everyone is familiar with what happened after 2013.

But there are a few things that really strike me about this case. Number one, I do think that, you know, this easily could have remained unsolved. I do. You know, you and I often talk about it in cases that are unsolved. it just takes that one thing, that one tip, that one person kind of willing to come forward and say what they know that breaks the whole thing wide open. And I think this case is a perfect example of that, right? Somebody heard something. They thought it was strange back in the day. And then all of a sudden they say, you know what? I'm going to tell the police about that. And then from there,

everything kind of like it's like the dam opens up and eventually police get to the right individuals now I still think it's very sad in this case that Conrado never actually faced a jury that he died before going to trial I also don't think it should take six years to get to trial I think that's a big problem but at the you know at the end of it, what happened to Angelica was horrible. It was tragic. To think about a four-year-old. And her sister, Marabelle, as well, at three years old, going through what they went through, being tied up, being starved, having scraps of food, you know, basically thrown at them as though they were animals. I mean, it's sickening. And then to think,

that a four-year-old was sexually assaulted and killed, it's a tough case, man. And these type of cases definitely are hard to do. Yeah, the torture she went through in her young life is horrific. And what really gets at me is this is family that did this to her. That's who you count on to protect you and keep you safe. And to know that she went through all of this before dying and being thrown out like a piece of trash at the hands of family. I just, it's hard to wrap my head around that. Yeah, that's a good point. I'm glad you made that because, you know, this was not a stranger.

This wasn't someone off the street targeting a victim. This was a member of her own family or members of her own family that did this to her. That is really rough. Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for writing and research assistance in this episode. As always, if you love the show, but you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating. Keep telling your friends, word of mouth, about the criminology podcast really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media or on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod, you can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcasts, Discussion and Fans.

All right, Morf, that is it for our case on Baby Hook. Hope, Angelica Castillo. But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode of criminology. So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.