Alejandro Henriquez

Case record: Alejandro Henriquez

Status / outcome

Alejandro Henriquez was sentenced to three consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison in 1992 after a jury convicted him of killing Lisa Ann Rodriguez, Shamira Bello, and Jessica Guzman.

Justice Daniel J. Sullivan read the sentence, and the sentencing meant that Mr. Henriquez would not be considered for parole for at least 75 years. Mr. Henriquez’s 75-year term would not begin until he completed other sentences: 5 to 15 years for an armed robbery in Manhattan and 2 to 4 years for scalding the 3-year-old son of his former wife, Andrea Rosario.

People

• Alejandro Henriquez — defendant; livery-car driver; convicted of strangling three victims.
• Lisa Ann Rodriguez — victim; 21 years old; strangled.
• Shamira Bello — victim; 14 years old; strangled.
• Jessica Guzman — victim; 10 years old; strangled.
• Edward J. Talty — prosecutor.
• Justice Daniel J. Sullivan — judge who read the sentence.
• Mel A. Sachs — Henriquez’s lawyer.
• Santiago Rodriguez — father of Lisa Ann Rodriguez.
• Evelyn Rodriguez — wife of Santiago Rodriguez; visited their daughter’s grave and later attempted suicide.
• Ricky — Jessica’s 14-year-old brother.
• Andrea Rosario — Henriquez’s former wife.
• John Anthony Ramirez — Henriquez’s nephew; testified at trial.
• Irwin Silverman — detective; chief investigator.
• Gus Papay — detective; chief investigator.
• Francis X. Callery — police expert; testified about hair/fiber matching.
• Heriberto Marrero — considered a suspect victim in additional deaths; 15 years old.
• Nilda Cartagena — Henriquez’s niece; considered a suspect victim in additional deaths; 13 years old.
• Annette Rosario — considered a suspect victim in additional deaths; 17 years old; not related to Henriquez’s former wife.

Timeline

• July 2, 1988 — 14-year-old Shamira Bello disappeared from her working-class neighborhood.
• June 21, 1989 — Nilda Cartagena, 13, and Heriberto Marrero, 15, were found strangled to death near the Whitestone Bridge.
• June 14, 1990 — Lisa Ann Rodriguez was taken.
• June 1990 — the decomposed body of Lisa Ann Rodriguez was found.
• October 1990 — Jessica Guzman was found dead off the Bronx River Parkway.
• August 28 (year not specified in the record) — Henriquez was convicted of killing Lisa Ann Rodriguez, Shamira Bello, and Jessica Guzman.
• Last month (relative to sentencing, year not specified) — the Guzman and Rodriguez families filed a $20 million lawsuit against the city.
• 1992 (sentencing year) — Henriquez was sentenced to three consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison.

The offence

Alejandro Henriquez was convicted on August 28 of strangling three victims:

• Lisa Ann Rodriguez, 21 years old
• Shamira Bello, 14
• Jessica Guzman, 10

The investigation and trial also described a pattern involving Hispanic children in the South Bronx, with the victims’ sexually abused bodies described in relation to Shamira Bello and the killings connected by an investigation focused on the common denominator, Alejandro Henriquez.

Investigation

New York City Police initially did not see a serial killer in the case of kidnapping and murdering Hispanic children in the South Bronx. The first victim identified in the case summary was 14-year-old Shamira Bello, who disappeared on July 2, 1988 and had her sexually abused body found the next day in Pelham Bay Park.

The case description stated that between 1986 and 1992 police found 40 bodies dumped in Pelham Bay Park.

The investigation progressed to additional disappearances from the same area:

• Almost a year later, two more children—Nilda Cartagena, 13, and Heriberto Marrero, 15—disappeared from the same area and were found strangled to death near the Whitestone Bridge on June 21, 1989.

The subsequent killings were described as follows:

• Lisa Ann Rodriguez was taken on June 14, 1990; her decomposed body was found in June 1990; the body was dumped along the Hutchinson River Parkway.
• Three months later, 10-year-old Jessica Guzman vanished and was found strangled near the Bronx River Parkway.

The killings helped bring the community together, including raising money for additional police patrols and holding vigils and news conferences to keep the murders on the front pages. When Jessica’s body was found, 2,000 people attended her funeral. Police then formed a 40-member task force to solve the murders.

Evidence and linking to Henriquez

Investigators described decomposition making it difficult to determine how the victims died, with victims’ ages ranging from 10 to 21 (Rodriguez was the oldest) and Heriberto being male.

Investigators concluded that the common denominator was Alejandro Henriquez, linking him by ties to each victim:

• He had dated Lisa Ann Rodriguez.
• He was Nilda Cartagena’s uncle.
• He knew Shamira Bello.
• He was one of the last people seen with Jessica Guzman.
• He was dating a woman whose daughter was one of Jessica’s close friends.

The case summary stated that after Jessica failed to return home for dinner, Henriquez came under suspicion despite his participation in search parties and candlelight prayer vigils. The summary said he was cooperative when questioned by police but that they were disturbed by his responses to some questions.

The case summary also described that Henriquez was more than curious about the effectiveness of the bloodhounds detectives used to find clues. His request to a young friend to follow the tracking dog and report what it found prompted police to elevate his status from “person of interest” to “suspect.”

When investigators looked into his background, the case summary said suspicions were confirmed:

• Henriquez at first denied knowing 21-year-old Lisa Rodriguez, but after being confronted with a picture and asked about a date they had had, he admitted knowing her and claimed he never saw her after the date.
• He told children that he was an undercover federal narcotics agent, and he often bought them video games and toys.
• The summary stated that Henriquez liked to brag about his sexual prowess, and quoted detectives describing their work.

Detectives Irwin Silverman and Gus Papay were described as the chief investigators. Irwin later told the New York Daily News:

“I lived with this case every day, every night,” Irwin later told the New York Daily News. “We checked out Alex from the day he was in his mother’s womb. Gus and I went into everything in his whole life.”

The evidence against Henriquez was described as largely circumstantial. A police expert, Francis X. Callery, testified that:

• three strands of hair found on Bello matched that Henriquez;
• charts and slides showed similarities; and
• fibers found on three victims matched those in a vacuum cleaner in Henriquez’s apartment or on a spool of red thread that had been in his apartment.

Most damning evidence described in the case summary involved a plan attributed to Henriquez: an attempt to have his nephew make phone calls to the media pretending to be the killer. The case summary included Ramirez’s testimony:

“He wanted me to pretend like I was the killer,” the nephew, John Anthony Ramirez, testified. “He told me to disguise my voice, to be careful not to get caught, to keep it a secret between me and him.”

The case summary stated that when Ramirez asked for more details of the crimes, Henriquez slipped up and told him things that only the killer would know, such as a rip in the training bra that Jessica was wearing, a fact said not to have been made public.

A note Ramirez was to use as a script also emerged during the trial, reproduced as written:

“I called you to worn you put you didn’t listen. I will strik again were when how. But soon my this time youll belive me . . . I will stop when I reah Big 13. So far luckey 7 ha ha ha ha hang up.”

Trial

The case was described as a long trial on emotion but short on direct proof. Henriquez did not testify during the six-week trial.

After a six-week trial, Henriquez, who did not take the stand, was convicted of:

• the murders of Jessica Guzman, Lisa Ann Rodriguez and Shamira Bello.

After the conviction, Henriquez said he believed a jury had wrongly convicted him. In State Supreme Court in the Bronx, he invoked the image of his own children and expressed anger and bafflement at being accused.

In his statement at sentencing, Henriquez addressed the victims:

“To Mr. and Mrs. Guzman,” he said while standing at the wooden defense table, but not looking back at their faces, “I would have never hurt little Jessica Guzman. I have two daughters of my own, one who is named Jessica, who is also my life. I had no reason to take any of these children's lives.”

During sentencing, the courtroom erupted into applause when Justice Daniel J. Sullivan read his sentence.

During Henriquez’s statement, he lashed out against Edward J. Talty, Ms. Rosario, and a nephew who had testified against him, accusing them all of lying. Henriquez said:

“There are a lot of things that had been hidden in this trial,” he said. “I feel I haven't been given a fair trial.”

At one point, Jessica’s 14-year-old brother, Ricky, yelled out from his seat:

“Everybody lies but you, Alex, right? Everybody lies but you.”

Sentencing

Justice Daniel J. Sullivan read the sentence of three consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison. The sentencing meant that Mr.

At sentencing, Edward J. Talty asked the judge to show no leniency. Talty said:

“He should never be allowed to breathe the same air as decent people.”

The prosecutor described Henriquez as “now in his early 30’s” when asking for sentence.

Santiago Rodriguez, father of Lisa Ann, said:

“He is a liar,” said Santiago Rodriguez, the father of Lisa Ann, who was his only child. “He has been lying from the beginning.”

Appeals

Henriquez’s lawyer, Mel A. Sachs, argued during sentencing that the verdict should be overturned, including these claims:

• One juror was not competent to decide the case because the juror began to suffer from withdrawal from methadone on the third day of deliberations and had to be taken to the hospital.
• Sachs argued that jurors convicted Henriquez only hours after that juror was medicated with methadone, which he had been taking since 1988 to break a heroin addiction.

Sachs said:

“Apparently his withdrawal from methadone and his being given an ingestion of methadone caused the verdict of this case,” Mr. Sachs said. “Mr. Henriquez is entitled to a fair and just verdict.”

Aftermath

Additional deaths and police suspicions

The record stated that Henriquez was considered a suspect, but had not been charged, in three other deaths:

• Heriberto Marrero, 15;
• Nilda Cartagena, 13;
• Annette Rosario, 17, no relation to his former wife.

Civil lawsuit

The Guzman and Rodriguez families filed a $20 million lawsuit against the city, charging that their daughters’ deaths could have been avoided had the police vigorously followed up leads pointing to Mr. Henriquez after Shamira Bello was killed in July 1988.

Family statements and reactions

The case summary said victims’ families spoke before sentencing, recounting their pain and how their lives were devastated.

It stated that Santiago Rodriguez said that last Easter his wife, Evelyn, who stood by his side yesterday, visited their daughter’s grave for the first time. The next day, Evelyn tried to commit suicide. Rodriguez said in court:

“The void inside me is so deep sometimes I can't bear it,” he said. “That is why I hate this person so much. He not only killed my daughter. He killed me, too.”

Other sentences mentioned in relation to start of parole term

Mr. Henriquez’s 75-year term would not begin until completion of:

• 5 to 15 years for an armed robbery in Manhattan; and
• 2 to 4 years for scalding the 3-year-old son of his former wife, Andrea Rosario.