Cops ID A Jane Doe And A Suspect

 View Larger

Yesenia Nungaray's suspected killer, Miguel Nunez-Castaneda, used to work at the same restaurant as the murdered teen.

Since 2003, cops in Northern California have searched for clues that would ultimately lead them to identifying a teenage Jane Doe and the man they believe killed her.  On December 21, 2006, they figured out who the girl was -- 16-year-old Yesenia Nungaray -- and where she came from, but it took them until the following November to name a suspect in her murder.

Following a lead to the Mexican city of Yahualica in December of 2006, Alameda County Sheriff investigators passed out fliers throughout the town and spoke with residents.  The trip paid off: one of the flyers found their way to Maria Del Carmen, a mother of three whose middle child and only daughter left for the United States back in 2003.  Her daughter, Yesenia Becerra Nungaray, left for the San Francisco Bay area on her 16th birthday and always kept in touch with her mother.  Before she disappeared, police say that Yesenia told her mother that her worst day in America was better than her best day in Mexico.  One day, the phone calls stopped. 

Police say Yesenia lived briefly in a house in Hayward, California with Miguel Angel Nunez-Castaneda, a man she knew from Yahualica.  Cops believe that when Yesenia came to California, she called Nunez-Castaneda for a place to stay and possible job opportunities. 

Sgt. Scott Dudek of Alameda County Sheriff's department tells AMW that Nunez-Castaneda fled the country after being questioned by authorities in November of 2006 and was officially named a suspect in Yesenia's murder at a press conference on November 6, 2007.

Investigators were able to positively identify the body of their Jane Doe as that of Yesenia's when they matched DNA samples found at the crime scene. 

Sergeant Scott Dudek and his team personally escorted Yesenia's remains back to her hometown in April of 2007 for a burial.  

Cops tell AMW that a warrant was issued confidentially a couple of weeks prior to the Nov. 6 press conference because U.S. and Mexican authorities were working in tandem to see if Nunez-Castaneda could be arrested.

Alameda County authorities say that Mexican citizens claim to know where Nunez-Castaneda is and they are cooperating in the process that will hopefully lead to his capture.  Authorities report that there have been numerous death threats made against Nunez-Castaneda in Mexico and they hope those threats will force him to turn himself in. 

Additionally, the Alameda County Sheriff's say Nunez-Castaneda is now wanted by Mexican State police for shooting and wounding a relative. 

Who Is Castro Valley's Teenage Jane Doe?

 View Larger

Taking murder victim Yesenia Nungaray's profile from the initial forensic sketch and recreating her outfit gave police an idea of her general appearance.

For years, a homicide has haunted the citizens of Castro Valley, California.  The story began on May 1, 2003, when a worker at a Carrow's restaurant noticed an alarming smell coming from a green, fly-covered laundry bag on the edge of a parking lot. 

The employee's call to 9-1-1 resulted in Deputy Michael Gallardo arriving at the scene at around 7 p.m.  Gallardo spoke with the employees, noticed the smell of decay, and eventually opened the duffel to reveal shoeless feet with painted toenails.  As more patrolmen arrived, Sgt. Scott Dudek, a father himself, surmised that the body stuffed into this laundry bag was that of an adolescent girl.

As the night went on, police believed the girl to be in her early teens.  This juvenile Jane Doe -- now identified as Yesenia Nungaray -- initially provided very few clues about who she may have been and even fewer about the circumstances leading to her death.  How Yesenia ended up in such an abominable state was one question that police hoped forensic scientists could soon figure out.

Forensic Scientists Try To Crack The Case

After the coroner's office revealed that the Yesenia's death was due to a gag that eventually asphyxiated her, it would be up to a dedicated, diverse, and talented group of forensic scientists to figure out who she was. 

Police enlisted the help of a specialized team of forensic scientists and anthropologists to determine the age, race, time of death, and any physical anomalies that might be telling clues. 

They reported back that the Jane Doe was either of mixed black and white heritage or possibly Latino.  Initially thought to be as old as 16, forensic dentist Duane Spencer pointed to her developing wisdom teeth as aging her at 13 or 14 years old. 

Forensic sketch artist Amy Nelder was then brought in to give a face to the decomposed body.  Nelder's sketches became a two-dimensional reconstruction of how the girl may have looked, right down to the outfit she was discovered in and her painted toenails. 

Forensic sculptor Gloria Nusse also used her skills to give a face to the murdered teenage girl.  Beginning with a lump of clay, Gloria sculpted the likeness of a girl she had never met or seen alive. 

Gloria's work brought to life the face of a victim, complete with hair, eyes, nose, and lips.  She believes that the Jane Doe was indeed Hispanic and somewhere between 12 and 17 years old.  But at the time, cops still had no idea who the girl was. 

While police were finally gaining a portrait of the girl, it would be an entomologist that allowed them to date back to when her murder occurred.  Utilizing the study of bugs to tell how long a corpse has been dead, entomologist Robert Kimsey studied the life span of maggot populations to gather evidence.

Aging the maggots allowed Kimsey to ascertain that the body of the Jane Doe was about nine days old when it was discovered on May 1, 2007.  It was only with the help of this team of experts in their fields that a composite of Yesenia Nungaray came to be.

Soon, the media exposure spread to Spanish-speaking and greater California communities. Press conferences were held offering rewards for any information leading to the identification of the girl or her killer.  Police kept the juvenile Jane Doe in the spotlight, but after their extensive search, they had no leads.  It would be seven months before police would get a break in the case. 

A Mysterious Letter Raises More Questions

 View Larger

This letter arrived months after Yesenia Nungaray's body was discovered from a man claiming to be in the same parking lot where the remains were found in late April 2003. The writer thinks he may have spoken with the man responsible for dumping her body.

A letter post-marked December 4, 2003 arrived at the Alameda County Sheriff's Office from an anonymous source.  The letter was from a man who felt he was in the same Carrow's parking lot in late April and spoke with a man he thought might be the killer.  According to the writer's account, he spoke with the man briefly in Spanish.  He noted that the man had unloaded something from his trunk and left in an excited state.  The writer of the letter was also able to give a general description. 

In another bizarre twist, police received a second letter eight months later from the same man. In this letter, he stated that after speaking to his girlfriend about the incident he witnessed in April 2004, she told him that she checked her day planner and they hadn't met on the same date that police believed the body was left. The letter closed by saying that the writer was sorry that he couldn't help. 

Both letters had the same return address of Bullhead City, Ariz.  Beyond that, little is known about the writer of these letters or his possible connection to the incidents surrounding Yesenia Nungaray's death.

- By Robert Brown, AMW Staff

Timeline: