This summer, the Phoenix Police Department has launched a new initiative to bring attention to cold case homicides. "Hot Desert, Cold Cases" will be a series of videos and other posts on the department's social media profiles, highlighting cold cases. In addition, Silent Witness is upping the reward for information leading to the arrest and/or indictment of the suspect/s of the crime. The reward will be $5,000 for the first four cold cases.
The series continues with the murder of Nicole Aguilera.
"They told me my mom was in the casket," Vanessa Marquez recalls. "I just remember crying and trying to like put my hand out."
Vanessa visits the grave site of her mother, Nicole Aguilera, regularly. In January of 1991, 18-year-old Nicole was killed—a homicide that has gone unsolved for nearly 30 years.
"People call their mom on the phone," Vanessa said. "We've never been able to do that."
Vanessa and her little sister Reina Salaiz have lived most of their lives without a mother. Vanessa was three years old at the time of the killing. She was living with her grandma. Reina, was only five months, and was in her crib in the next room over from where her mother was murdered.
"The only thing that I know is that somebody heard me crying, and then they came in and got me," Reina said. "Sometimes I think I remember but then, I don't know. It could be just my imagination."
Detectives report that in the early hours of January 17, 1991, neighbors heard loud voices coming from Nicole's south Phoenix apartment near 3rd Avenue and Buckeye Road. Later that morning, a crying baby was heard. That's when a neighbor checked on the apartment, and seeing the back door slightly open, entered to find Nicole dead. The baby, Reina, was unharmed.
"This case drew my attention by the sheer brutality," Phoenix Police Detective Dominick Roestenberg said. "Nicole was stabbed, according to the medical examiner's office, in excess of 90 times. Most of her injuries occurred in her face and her neck area."
Detective Roestenberg said there was limited forensic evidence at the scene, and even less witness information, which makes solving this case a challenge. Detective Roestenberg said he has reviewed hundreds of cases in his career, but this one stands out.
"It's hard to imagine stabbing somebody," Det. Roestenberg said. "But the fact that you can stab somebody repeatedly, over 90 times, especially in their face and their neck, just takes it to another level."
Vanessa and Reina are now both grown. They are wives, and mothers themselves, but they said nothing replaces all the missed moments with their own mother, and they continue to hold out hope that the person responsible for killing their mom will be held accountable.
"We were robbed of our childhood," Vanessa said. "It really affected us. It really did. Because a mom is something we still, to this day, need. And we don't have it."
Republished courtesy of Phoenix Police Department.