Tip line set up in ‘Beth Doe’ death
Police charged NY man with homicide in killing of 15-year-old
Detectives investigating the gruesome death of a New Jersey girl whose recently identified remains were found 44 years ago along the Lehigh River in Carbon County are asking for the public’s help to secure a conviction.
State police on Wednesday charged Luis Sierra, 63, of Ozone Park, New York, with homicide in connection with the killing of 15-year old Evelyn Colon. The pregnant Jersey City resident went missing in December 1976.
Police say Colon is “Beth Doe,” the girl found dismembered and stuffed into suitcases along with a full-term fetus who has been the subject of decades of cold case investigations. Sierra is her former boyfriend.
He’s in a New York prison awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania, and investigators are seeking information pertinent to the case.
“We strongly encourage anyone who feels they can provide insight into this case to contact [state police],” officials said in a statement.
The number to call is 1-800-4PA-TIPS (1-800-4728477), and callers should reference Media Release 1956, police
said in a statement.
Colon’s remains were identified through a DNA match with a family member, in a process called forensic genealogy. Sierra’s arrest comes after years of investigation, ramped up each time new forensic testing methods became available. Colon’s DNA profile was obtained in 2007, for example, but police were unable to match it to any missing person.
Last year, Colon’s DNA was placed in a public database of genetic information that led detectives to her nephew. He put police in touch with other family members in New Jersey, including Colon’s brother, who confirmed that he had a sister who fit the deceased girl’s description, and that she went missing in 1976, when she was eight or nine months pregnant.
Colon’s family members gave police Sierra’s name. They said Colon and Sierra, who went by the name “Wiso,” had moved into an apartment together. They described visiting the apartment one day in mid-December 1976 to bring the pregnant teen soup, but found it “emptied,” court records say.
The family members told police that “Sierra was abusive and jealous toward Evelyn and would keep her locked in the apartment at times … Evelyn had told their mother that she feared Sierra and that if anything happened to her, he was likely involved,” court records say.
Colon was never seen again, though her family recalled getting a letter in January 1977 stating the couple had moved to Connecticut. Colon’s family did not report her missing, state police said.
When approached at his home by state troopers last week, Sierra initially denied knowing Colon, court records say, but eventually admitted that they dated and she was about to have his child.
Sierra, who was 19 in 1976, told police that Colon threatened to leave him, so when he did not find her home one day he assumed she had gone to live with her mother. He denied sending a letter from Connecticut.
The remains of Colon and a fetus were found Dec. 20, 1976, on the Lehigh River bank in East Side, Carbon County, about 50 miles north of Allentown.
A 14-year-old boy playing on the riverbank found Colon’s head and the fetus 10 feet away in grass and weeds below the Interstate 80 overpass. Police found the rest of Colon’s remains in suitcases and believe they were thrown from the overpass.
An autopsy showed that the girl had been strangled and shot in the neck, and that her limbs were removed after her death. Her head was also severed, with her ears and nose cut off. Police believe the killing occurred about 24 hours before the remains were discovered.
The search for Beth Doe’s identity garnered nationwide attention, but few leads. Authorities in 2007 exhumed the remains to begin work on identifying them. Forensic reconstructive sketches of the girl were publicized in 2014 and again in ’15.
State police and the Carbon County district attorney’s office are expected to release more information on the case soon.