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Baby Hope's Accused Killer Said He Suffocated Her in Confession: Report

By Ben Fractenberg | April 28, 2016 3:47pm
 A sketch artist's rendering of Baby Hope.
A sketch artist's rendering of Baby Hope.
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NYPD

MANHATTAN — “She was suffocated with a pillow,” the man accused of murdering and then disposing of Baby Hope’s body in 1991 said in a video confession, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The video recorded in October 2013 of Conrado Juárez’s confession was played in New York Supreme Court on Wednesday during a pre-trial hearing, according to reports and court records.

In it he also confessed to molesting the girl while she was living with his sister, before smothering her and then stuffing her body into a cooler he left in Inwood Hill Park.

When the girl's body was found, there was no way to identify her, so police began calling her "Baby Hope." After Juárez was arrested in 2013, it was discovered that the girl was 4-year-old Anjelica Castillo.

Juárez, Castillo’s cousin, was arrested after police received a tip from a woman who said she overheard a conversation in a Washington Heights laundromat about another woman’s little sister possibly being killed.

She notified the NYPD and investigators were then able to track down the woman, who turned out to be Baby Hope’s sister.

Juárez, who has four children, was later arrested at a restaurant where he worked.

His lawyer, Michael Croce, argued that the confession was coerced and that Juárez, who only speaks Spanish, might have been answering questions that were not properly translated from investigators, the New York Daily News reported.

Croce did not return a request for comment.

Juárez is due back in court on June 17.