A 63-year-old New Yorker has been charged with killing his pregnant girlfriend, 44 years after her remains were found in three suitcases dumped in a Pennsylvania river.
Luis Sierra, who was 19 when the killing took place, was charged with homicide on Wednesday in the death of Evelyn Colon, a 15-year-old Jersey City girl.
Evelyn’s remains were found in three suitcases along the Lehigh River in Carbon County, Pennsylvania, on December 20, 1976, along with her nearly full-term fetus.
The cases were found beneath an interstate overpass, and cops believe it is likely that they were thrown from a moving vehicle off a bridge, LehighValleyLive.com reports.
The remains went unidentified for more than four decades, and were buried in a grave marked ‘Beth Doe.’
The remains were exhumed in 2007, and DNA tests last year finally helped identify her body, according to 69 News.
A GoFundMe page set up by the Colon family says that DNA from Evelyn’s nephew eventually provided the breakthrough that investigators needed.
Pictured: A reconstruction of what Evelyn Colon – formerly ‘Beth Doe’ – looked like. Her remains were recently identified, likely through DNA evidence, leading to a break in her murder
Sierra, who was 15-year-old Evelyn’s boyfriend in 1976, was identified as a suspect.
‘Numerous interviews and investigational processes were conducted following her identification which led to the development of a suspect,’ said state police.
A press conference on the case is expected to be held at some point next week.
‘The Pennsylvania State Police, in consultation with the Carbon County District Attorney’s Office, will provide detailed information regarding this case in the near future,’ the state police said.
Colon, who was never technically reported missing, was strangled, shot, and dismembered, with her ears and nose cut off.
In 2020, Colon’s femur was sent to a lab in Texas, which helped create a DNA profile that may have linked to a living relative.
Colon was 15 and carrying a child at the time of her murder (reconstruction pictured)
According to PAHomepage, Evelyn’s sister Migdalia was interview by investigators and said the apartment shared by Evelyn and Luis was empty when her mother went to bring Evelyn soup in mid-December of 1976.
Migdalia said Luis was abusive and jealous, once locking Evelyn in their apartment.
The family received a letter in 1977 claiming in Spanish that Evelyn and the baby were well, but Evelyn likely didn’t pen it, as she was unable to write.
Sierra initially declined knowing Evelyn when approached by investigators, only to change his tune and say he last saw her in their apartment before he left for work in 1976.
He was unable to explain his lack of effort to contact Evelyn, however, or the letter the family received.
Pictured: The Lehigh River, which is where Colon’s remains were first found (stock)
Evelyn’s identification has now led to a GoFundMe page for a proper memorial for her and her baby.
‘After 45 years of desperate searching, our beloved Evelyn and her baby girl have been found through her nephew’s DNA match,’ the page reads.
‘The hopes of one day reuniting with her were long etched in our hearts. She was taken from a family who loved her and a family longing to meet her and her child for the first time.
‘We never could have imagined this would be the way we would see her again. The gruesome brutality of Evelyn and her baby’s murder have deeply broken us.’
The page says there are plans to pick a name for the baby and reunite its remains with Colon ahead of a proper memorial.
Sierra is set to be extradited to Carbon County, according to the New York Post.
Colon’s remains are currently in White Haven, Pennsylvania
