‘We pray for justice’
2 children among 4 killed in Miramar home in 1997
The thick case file is still on his desk, never to be tucked in a drawer out of sight, forever active until it’s over. Notes and photos of the gruesome crime that gripped this city 25 years ago aren’t far from his mind.
For Miramar Police Detective Danny Smith, this case will never be over until the people involved are held accountable.
“It’s always on my desk,” Smith said of the case file. “It’s always out.”
Minutes have gone by, then years, and now decades.
No matter how much time has elapsed, a family stays frozen in time mourning the loss of four people, all murdered in a Miramar home on April 30, 1997. Two babies were bludgeoned to death, and their mother and grandmother beaten and shot.
Killed that day were Marie Altidor, 29, her mother, Theresa Laverne, 68, and Marie and George Altidor’s daughters, Sabrina, 6 weeks, and Samantha, 2. Laverne had traveled from Haiti to help care for the newborn whose baby presentation was planned at church but never held.
Laverne is buried in Haiti, her family said.
Marie is buried holding baby Sabrina in her arms, who is wearing her baby presentation dress, in Miami-Dade. Samantha is in the gravesite next to them.
On Saturday, the family marked the tragedy with a church service and then candlelight walk to the house on South Crescent Drive. Alain Laverne, whose sister, mother and nieces were murdered, broke down in tears outside of the church.
“It feels like yesterday,” he said. “Yes, we do have hope” that police will solve the case, he said. “God has a way to solve things.”
The family now has renewed hope: new technology in DNA that didn’t exist until now is “being done currently” in tests, Smith said. Pending the investigation, he couldn’t say where the DNA was collected from.
George Altidor, who the family said has since remarried and moved to Oklahoma, remains a person of interest in the investigation. Altidor was never arrested or charged in the case. Altidor has always maintained his innocence.
Police said no murder weapons were found and there was no indication of a break-in. The crime scene was staged to look like a drug-related home invasion, cops say. The bodies were found in the 8800 block of South Crescent Drive, their killers leaving behind a message scrawled on a wall: “I want my 100,000 drug money. They stole my drugs.”
Police removed and stored that wall as evidence, and combed the house for a week.
The bodies were discovered by George Altidor’s brother-in-law, who stopped by the house at his request. Altidor told police he tried to phone home from work several times and became worried when he got no answer.
Apparently trying to hide, Samantha was found dead between an overstuffed chair and a couch in the family room. Sabrina was beaten to death in a bassinet in the living room. Authorities said the killer or killers used a blunt force object, like a hammer.
“The blood of innocent children cannot be shed in vain,” said Marie Florent-Carre, a cousin of the family. “We pray for justice.”
Multiple members of the police department came to walk with the family, including the chief. Detectives said they hope the attention causes someone to come forward with a tip that leads to an arrest.
They think they are looking for more than one person: “At the very least someone is complicit in it,” Smith said.
The mourners walked to the house with small candles, singing Christian songs in French. Outside the house, Laverne asked for a moment of silence. Mere seconds passed, but it was too much for Alberthe Mardy, whose sister, mother and nieces were killed.
“Mommy!” she cried out in anguish in front of the house. Relatives rushed to hold her.
Her loss is palpable. “Every time we had a baby, mommy came to help us,” she said of her mother’s trip to Miramar to help. “They were so innocent,” she said of the children.