Edwin Alcaide Arrested In Cold Case Killing Of Lisette Torres In 1987
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Twenty five years after the brutal murder of a young woman, technology has finally cracked the case.
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The victim's parents called Thursday's arrest the miracle they've been waiting for. Detectives found the key evidence at the original crime scene, but they couldn't trace it until now.
She was just 19 and returning home to Sunset Park, Brooklyn to ring in 1987 with her family. Only, when the ball dropped, there was no sign of Lisette Torres until the next morning when a body was found in what was once a lot.
Detectives knocked on her parents door to give them the tragic news.
"They tell me they find Lisette stabbed to death," the victim's father, Jose Torres, told CBS 2's Sean Hennessey.
Since that horrific day, lots of questions but there no arrests until now.
"I wait for a miracle and the miracle came today after 25 years," said Jose Torres.
That miracle came with the arrest of Edwin Alcaide -- a man Torres knew from the neighborhood.
"I'm happy now," the victim's mother, Rosa Torres, said.
The arrest is a long-awaited relief for her anguished parents, who never gave up hope.
"I waiting for 25 year for this moments you know," Rosa Torres said.
Alcaide, of the East Village, is a registered sex offender who police suspected from the beginning. But he couldn't be linked to the crime until DNA testing -- which wasn't available in 1987 -- was conducted.
It turns out Alcaide's DNA matched the DNA found under Torres' fingernails.
"Finally we can get closure." said Jose Garcia, the victim's brother-in-law.
Garcia, a retired NYPD cop, isn't surprised by the arrest.
"He was just a shady character. He had his problems out on the streets," Garcia said.
For Torres' tortured parents, the waiting and are finally over, but the heartbreak lives on.
"It will be like that for years," said Jose Torres.
Every month, the parents have been visiting their daughter's grave, telling their youngest that one day the killer would be caught.
This weekend when they visit again, the message at the tombstone will finally be different.
Alcaide will be arraigned Friday on a charge of second-degree murder. The Torres family plans to be in court.
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