‘Justice, finally’: Family and friends remember Iriana DeJesus
The 5-year-old was kidnapped and killed in 2000. An arrest has been made in the case.
Lizasuain DeJesus, 65, had received many calls from Philadelphia homicide Detective Joseph Bamberski since her daughter Iriana disappeared in 2000. But Thursday’s call was different: He was calling to tell her that the police had made an arrest in Iriana’s case.
DeJesus called her daughter Iyanna Vazques, 34, to deliver the news. “It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders,” Vazques said. She was 8 years old when her little sister disappeared, the week of her birthday.
“I lost my best friend and I remember it like it was yesterday,” Vazques said. She could recall what her sister was wearing and how her hair was done the day she disappeared. An arrest in the case felt “like a dream,” she added.
Iriana DeJesus was playing outside her home on the 3900 block of North Fairhill Street on July 29, 2000, when she went missing. She was 5 years old.
A family friend told police at the time she saw Iriana walking with a stranger.
On Aug. 3, 2000, her body was found covered by a green trash bag. Iriana had been raped and strangled to death about a block from her home, in a second-floor apartment above a vacant store on the 3900 block of North Sixth Street.
At the time, police described the perpetrator as a “drifter,” but not much else was known about him.
Authorities launched a national manhunt. But it was not until March 2007 that federal officials issued a warrant for the arrest of Alexis Flores. He had been identified through a DNA database that allowed investigators to name him as a suspect years after a November 2004 arrest on a felony forgery charge in Phoenix.
» READ MORE: Man arrested in a 5-year-old Philly girl’s death, after 2 decades on FBI’s most-wanted list
On Thursday, FBI Director Kash Patel announced Flores had been apprehended.
“After more than 25 years on the run, this arrest proves time and distance do not shield violent offenders from justice,” Patel wrote on social media.
Flores was detained on Wednesday in Honduras, Fox News reported. He was wanted for crimes including unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, murder, kidnapping, and indecent assault in connection with the Iriana DeJesus case, according to the FBI.
Vazques said she is choosing to focus on the love their community has provided over the long years of not knowing what happened.
“We are always going to be from this block,” DeJesus said. “These people are the reason I’m still strong, because a lot of them never gave up on us, on my baby.”
DeJesus said she still sees Iriana in many corners of her block, in the faces of little girls with pigtails playing outside, and it gives her hope. “Iriana, I love you and I will never stop loving you; you will always be in my heart.”
Zoraida Reyes, 65, still remembers the frenzy her Hunting Park neighborhood lived through when Iriana disappeared.
“She was a beautiful girl, happy, calm; we went mad looking for her,” Reyes said. Since then, the neighborhood has changed, she said. But people still support one another, and Iriana was never forgotten.
On Sunday, as about 100 neighbors gathered at Sixth and Pike Streets for a balloon release in Iriana’s memory, Vazques and DeJesus felt grateful. “There is nothing that will beat this feeling,” DeJesus said, as neighbors lined up to hug her. A picture of Iriana in her pigtails, with a bright smile was handed to attendees with a message: “Justice, finally.”
Vasques, wearing a matching Eagles shirt and hat, held on to a necklace with a now-faded picture of Iriana that her mom gave her in the ninth grade.
“I don’t take it off, it’s my everything,” Vazques said. “It reminds me of how much of a sweet soul she was.”
Staff writer Nick Vadala contributed to this article.