Conrado Juarez, 52, is arraigned at Manhattan Criminal Court for the alleged murder of 4-year-old Anjelica Castillo, nicknamed "Baby Hope", Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013, in New York.
Conrado Juarez, the suspect in the 22-year-old investigation into the death of ‘Baby Hope,’ pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Saturday night, the New York Daily News reports.
New York City Police arrested Juarez, 52, on Friday. After a five-hour interrogation, he confessed to killing the 4-year-old in 1991 and disposing of her body in a cooler beside a New York City highway with the help of his sister, police announced Saturday. They also identified the girl for the first time as Anjelica Castillo.
At the arraignment, Juarez was charged with second-degree murder and ordered held without bail.
Juarez and his sister, who has since died, were cousins of Castillo’s father. The girl’s parents never reported her missing, and the cold case frustrated investigators for more than two decades. Castillo’s body was exhumed twice for DNA testing, but the case broke open only last week when a tipster provided information that allowed police to identify her mother.