Miami Man Accused In '86
Murder Of Daughter Freed
in Costa Rica
By David Ovalle, Miami
Herald
William Suarez, accused
of murdering his
2-year-old daughter in
1986 and burying her
corpse under his Little
Havana bedroom, is a
free man.
An appeals court in
Costa Rica, where Suarez
was arrested last year,
released him after
denying a U.S. request
for extradition to
Florida, the Miami-Dade
prosecutors' office said
Wednesday.
The court ruled last
month that Suarez had
already faced legal
proceedings for Elsie
Suarez's death in
Nicaragua in the 1980s,
meaning trial in
Miami-Dade would
constitute ``double
jeopardy.''
''We feel like it's a
horrible miscarriage. We
won't have the
opportunity to litigate
those issues here, much
less prosecute him for
such a horrendous
crime,'' said assistant
state attorney Barbra
Pineiro, Miami-Dade's
extradition chief.
Said Miami Detective
Andy Arostegui: ``He'll
have to answer to a
higher authority.''
Police say that in June
1986, Suarez smothered
Elsie because she would
not stop crying.
After wrapping her in a
sheet and burying her
under linoleum, he
whisked his family back
to their native
Nicaragua -- which still
has no extradition
treaty with the United
States.
Elsie's body was found
on June 11, 1986, when
Miami firefighters used
a saw to crack open a
five-by-five-foot
opening in the tile.
Detectives sifted dirt
by hand.
Within weeks, Miami
homicides detectives
flew to Nicaragua, then
under Sandinista rule,
where local
investigators had
detained and interviewed
Suarez at his in-laws
urging.
Miami detectives shared
documents with police
there and returned to
Miami. They were told
that, although Suarez
spent some time jailed
and hearings were held,
Nicaragua would not
prosecute him for
Elsie's death.
But what exactly
happened in those '80s
Nicaraguan legal
proceedings have been
blurred by the decades,
spotty records and a
foreign legal system,
Pineiro said. She does
not believe those
hearings were a trial.
In selected cases,
Miami-Dade can send
prosecutors to another
country that does not
extradite to help local
authorities try a
criminal case that
happened in Florida.
That did not happen in
Suarez's case. He spent
the ensuing years free.
But several years ago,
Suarez gave police and
prosecutors a legal
window when he moved to
Costa Rica, which does
extradite. Suarez was
arrested in October
2007.
But a Costa Rican court
ruled last month that
Suarez's previous legal
proceedings in Nicaragua
was enough.
That didn't sit well
with Arostegui, one of
the original detectives
who flew to Nicaragua in
1986. He pushed for
Suarez's arrest after
becoming a cold case
investigator.
''This is one of those
cases that always haunts
you and it's a case I
never stopped thinking
about it,'' Arostegui
said. ``I was able to
get some closure for the
little girl but
obviously the Costa
Rican authorities
thought differently.
``I respect their
decision, but I don't
think it was a correct
one.''
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