The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases. Welcome back to Cold and Missing. I'm Ali. And I'm Eli.
Welcome back, everyone. We are on episode 89 this week. Yes, and this week we are covering a cold case. Okay, do you want to just take us into it? Let's do it. So just as a bit of a content warning at the top, this case does involve a young person and there are mentions of sexual assault. And while all of the crimes we cover are horrible, this one is especially heinous. Today we are covering the cold case of Alexandra Anaya. And this takes place in August of 2005 in Hammond, Indiana.
But first a little bit about Alexandra. Alexandra also goes by Alex, so you'll hear me refer to her as both Alexandra and Alex throughout the podcast. She is 13 years old in 2005 and the seventh grader at Clark Middle School in Hammond, Indiana, which is just outside of the city of Chicago. In school, Alex is a popular student. She loved playing music and she particularly loved Usher at this time. She also was an animal lover. When she grew up, she wanted to become a veterinarian.
She had all sorts of different kinds of pets. Alex also has two younger twin sisters. While Alex's dad was not in her life, the twins father, Rudolfo Heredia, was in and out of their lives for the last several years. At this point in 2005, Alex's mother, Sandra Anaya, has broken up with Heredia. The girls and their mom lived in Hammond, Indiana while Heredia lived in nearby Chicago. Alex's younger sisters love her and look up to her in a lot of ways.
Alex steps into their lives to nurture them while their mother is working. Years later, one of the sisters will say, quote, she would feed us, teach us stuff. She taught us our colors, our ABCs, our numbers. I know we would get on her nerves. She had to take us everywhere she went because mom was at work. We were her annoying little sisters, end quote. As we get into the timeline, it's important to map out the relationship between Heredia and Sandra as it will come into play quite a bit.
Rudolfo Heredia and Sandra Anaya had broken up in the spring of 2005, just a few months before this. According to reports, Alex had told her mother that Heredia had been sexually assaulting her for years, since she was seven years old. When Sandra went to kick Heredia out, he grew angry, threatening Sandra and the girls. Sandra sticks to her guns and kicks him out and insists that he stays out. Over the next few months, Heredia will continually watch the family, according to local media.
There are reports that Sandra would come home to find him standing on the roof of a car to peer into a second story window. And there's one story that Alex was scared because she saw Heredia on the roof of a nearby building watching the home. It's also reported that Heredia will get a key made for Sandra's home. And when Sandra has the locks changed, he'll make another copy of the new key. He'll enter the home and go through Sandra's bedside table.
He ends up finding a pack of condoms and he takes them to her to confront her at her work. This is all starting to come to a head towards the end of the summer of 2005. Which brings us to our timeline. So Saturday, August 13th, 2005. This is happening in the early morning hours, Friday into Saturday morning. Sandra has a date and she ends up spending the evening out. She comes home around 3am and Alex is still awake. The two of them share some white castle and french fries.
Sandra was going to head back out for the evening and Alex was headed to bed. It is believed that Sandra left the home around 4am-4.30am. When Sandra arrived back a few hours later, the first thing she notices is that the door is unlocked. This was unusual as she was sure that it was locked when she left. When she enters the home, Alex isn't in her bedroom. She checks her two younger daughters who are still asleep in their bed. As Sandra searches the home, she realizes that Alex is missing.
She and her family lived on Pine Avenue in Hammond, Indiana and she was last seen wearing navy plaid pajama pants and a red Echo t-shirt. As Sandra continues to search, she starts calling family and Alex's friends to see if anyone knew where she was. When she couldn't find anyone who had seen her daughter, she calls the Hammond police to report her missing. The police treat her case as a runaway.
While Alex had never done this before in the past, her mother Sandra acknowledged that it could be possible as she was reaching her teen years, but the two hadn't been fighting and there was nothing wrong. However, as each day creeps by with no sign of Alexandra, police and her family grow increasingly worried. On Saturday, August 20th, 2005, it's been a week that Alex has been missing and it starts hitting the newspapers for the first time.
Hammond police chief Brian Miller is quoted as saying, we're concerned. She has a decent relationship with her mom. There's no evidence that we're finding, so the circumstances are unusual. End quote. Alexandra's mother Sandra does not believe that her daughter would run away, but also does not believe that she would stay gone this long. Witnesses have come forward over the last week saying that they saw Alexandra in a red car, possibly a four door Toyota. She was in the company of an adult man.
Witnesses say that he was white. Her mother has no idea who this person could even be behind the scenes. Hammond police and the Chicago police department are working together to see if a recent discovery in the Little Calumet River had been related to Alexandra because a few days after Alexandra's disappearance, this is Tuesday, August 16th, 2005, only three days since she disappeared. A family is voting on the Little Calumet River on the south side of Chicago.
In around 1130 AM, they find the torso of a girl's body in the river. The torso is nude. The body had been wrapped in heavy chains and straps around the waist and connected to a piece of concrete used to weigh it down to the bottom of the river. The body is missing her head, arms, and legs from the knee down. The body was found near 135th Street and Indiana Avenue. To date, her limbs and head have never been recovered.
The next day, Wednesday, August 17th, 2005, there is an autopsy conducted on the torso. At this point, they have not been able to ID the body. The autopsy does reveal that the injuries are consistent with sexual assault. The case is quickly ruled a homicide. The exact cause of death is not disclosed. It's unclear if the medical examiner is able to tell from the autopsy. The medical examiner does find her last meal in her stomach, which included french fries.
Additional details about Alex's murder are never revealed. Years later, an investigator will say, quote, the really horrifying stuff is what he did to her. I just couldn't believe he was that vicious, end quote. Investigators begin contacting police departments about missing person cases that could fit. They arrange to have a technician come down to extract DNA to try to enter into databases to see if there is any hit. Until then, she's labeled as morgue case 290.
It's unclear exactly when, but within days, the Hammond police are asking Sandra for a sample of her DNA to compare to the torso found in the river. Sandra's mother is skeptical that it's Alex. The local papers have described the torso as a woman's body and possibly white. However, the rest of the family is suspicious. The body was found just blocks from her ready as home. On Wednesday, September 7th, Alex has been missing for three weeks.
The DNA results come back and it's confirmed that the torso found in the little Calumet River was that of Alexandra and Naya. Police tell her family. According to the police, Sandra quote, she just fell apart, went down to her knees and crawled on the floor, crying and screaming, just lost it. End quote. When police announced to the local media that they have a DNA match, they also confirm that they have a suspect in custody related to Alexandra's case.
In the next few days on September 10th, police arrest Rudolpho Heredia. Ultimately, he is charged with stalking and he does not have any charges related to Alexandra's murder. During police interrogation, it's reported that he did admit to police that he had been recently following Sandra and Alexandra, watching them both in their Hammond home. He also admitted to getting an unauthorized key made for the home.
But a few weeks later, in October of 2004, Heredia will plead not guilty to the federal stalking charges. It's also revealed around this time that the night that Alexandra disappeared, Heredia had called the Naya house five different times and also had tried to call Sandra on her cell phone a number of different times. On Christmas 2004, it's been over four months since Alex's murder. Her mother Sandra writes a small letter to her in the newspaper.
It reads, quote, it's going to be our first Christmas without you. Christmas will never be the same without you. We didn't get to say goodbye. We wish you were here. I still search for you and wish you would come home. I am so sorry. It should have been me. I don't know how to let you go. I love you. End quote. There were a few delays in the trial, but it finally begins in January of 2006. The first witness in the trial is Sandra. She's later quoted as saying, I was scared.
I didn't want to make him angry. End quote. She tells the jury that she found Heredia standing on the roof of the car to look into their windows and Alexandra was scared after seeing him on the roof. Even with all of these allegations, Rodolfio Heredia is acquitted of the stalking charges. He's found not guilty. The jury was not told about the murder of Alexandra. Sandra tells the local paper, quote, they made me lie. They said, you have to say you have three daughters, like she's not dead.
I wasn't allowed to tell him that he was a suspect in my daughter's death, the only suspect. I know why I was there and why I wanted him kept in jail. Now he's out and walking around free and my daughter's not. I'm getting an order of protection right now. I don't want him coming near me. End quote. When the not guilty verdict is read, Sandra curses at the jury.
On what should have been Alexandra's 14th birthday, February 10th, 2006, her mother writes another letter to her in the paper, quote, we met 14 years ago this day. I tried to make this day special for you every year because you are so special to me. And today there's a cake waiting here for you and you're not here to blow out your candles. But I will wish every day you were here. We love you and miss you on your birthday. End quote.
Sandra and her twin daughters moved to Texas to be closer to family in the months that follow after Alex's murder. As the months continue to pass, the case starts to fall out of the media. The police who worked the case are haunted by it, but none more than her family. Her mother still hopes that they can recover the rest of Alex's body to put her to rest. Her mother says, quote, I feel that my daughter doesn't rest in peace. Her hands are somewhere else. Her head is somewhere else. End quote.
In March of 2009, so it's been about three and a half years since Alex's murder, Chicago police are still considering everyone in this case as a suspect. However, police feel confident that they just need that one tip from the public to close the case. Police talk about the case as if they're on the verge of solving it. But in February of 2010, on what should have been Alex's 18th birthday, her family writes another message to her in the paper. Simply quote, we love and miss you. End quote.
In September of 2016, 11 years since the murder of Alexandra, the FBI announced that they are reviving the cold case. They're taking over the case as part of the newly created FBI Chicago Homicide Initiative Task Force. At this point, investigators are no longer saying that Alex left her home on Pine Avenue in Hammond, Indiana. They now are rephrasing it as she disappeared between 430 and 645 AM. However, they do say that they have witnesses that saw Alex leaving early that morning.
The FBI believe that Alexandra was targeted, that this was not a random act. Investigators plan to submit evidence for scientific testing. The FBI also reveal a few new details in the case. When Alex went missing, she was wearing a round gold religious medallion. The chain was not with her body when it was discovered. Investigators think it could be possible that the killer had been holding onto it all these years.
Investigators don't reveal if Heredia is still a suspect in the case, citing that it's an ongoing investigation. They do say quote, we're asking for the public's assistance in bringing the individual responsible for this crime to justice, giving Alex and her family peace of mind and closure. End quote. However, during the press conference, the FBI say that this is quote, one of the most heinous murders we have ever seen involving a child. End quote.
In 2021, 16 years since Alex's murder, a Hammond investigator who originally was assigned to the case laments about how little forensic evidence they still have on it. He says quote, all that we ever had was her torso. We never found what he cut her up with. I'm sure it was in the bottom of the river too. End quote. In 2023, the FBI announced that they're doubling their reward for information to $20,000. The FBI is confident that someone out there knows something.
Quote, when someone commits a crime, it's very hard to keep it quiet, and they generally will tell at least one person. That person is out there somewhere. They already know they have what we need, and we want them to tell us. End quote. Alex's mother Sandra still has hope that she'll get the answers that she's looking for. She says quote, I want to know what she said. I want to know what happened. That's the only way I will ever maybe have closure. It's not fair.
She's gone and someone is walking around free. End quote. But that is all we know about the murder of Alexandra Alex Anaya. So if you know anything about the murder of Alex Anaya in August of 2005, please call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, or you can submit tips online at tips.fbi.gov. The sources for the timeline today come from the Chicago Tribune, The Times, SouthTown Star, The Call Leader, The Sun, Omaha World Herald, the Taylorville Daily Breeze Courier, WGN, Daily Beast, and ABC News.
So that is the case of Alex Anaya. I always appreciate the content warning at the top, but you know, cases like these never become easier to listen to, but I think that that's all the more reason to continue to cover them, especially ones like this that are particularly heinous. But just to start, that she was an animal lover. I think that those are the most incredible people in the world, people who care for, you know, animals and children and make it their life's work is always...
They're the good people in the world, so it's extra heartbreaking that she was extinguished before she got the chance to flourish in that area. And hearing about her younger sister, or her younger sisters, and just her lot in life and being an older sister, something I wrote down when I was listening to you tell her story was, there's nothing like an older sister. Because someone who has an older, amazing sister, the way you spoke about them just really resonated with me.
Yeah, it seems like the oldest daughter in families really holds kind of like a sacred place. And I think that's kind of being recognized more in culture of the eldest daughter.
I see a lot of memes about it, but it really seems like Alex was the big sister and filled that role to a T. And while this was very unfortunate that her mom had to do this, had to kick the boyfriend out when she learned of his disgusting behavior, I also wrote down, I love when moms do mom's mom things, like putting their foot down. But I love that she just kicked him out. I think it speaks volumes about the type of person that she is. I'm always really happy to see moms.
And I feel like if I'm not a mother, I don't have children, but any mom listening, I'm sure is like, of course, of course you kick that person out. Of course, of course, of course. There's no questions about it. But in this world, sometimes we see that not happening. So to me, it is just always a relief when it's like moms do the of course thing that happens for a child who is in danger.
So I will just say no charges were ever brought against Heredia in regards to the abuse that was alleged by Alex. Whether he is guilty or not of that or the this crime itself of her murder. Ultimately, the dude was acting wild, well up into well up until her death, you know, innocent until proven guilty, like we've said before on this podcast, but like, that is not how you behave after, you know, some very serious allegations have been said against you.
Like you don't you don't stand on the roof of another building to peer into someone's home. Like what I wrote down was not normal behavior. It is not normal behavior to go and make a second copy of keys that you are not supposed to have access to. All of that behavior is very odd. You know, it's unfortunate that if he isn't guilty that his name was dragged into this, but also you shouldn't have been behaving that way. He knows the difference between right and wrong.
And all of those decisions with the stocking was wrong, even if he wasn't found guilty of them. That doesn't mean he didn't do something wrong. So that's my opinion on him. I do have to say that yet again, we are in another case with a child where police from jump have made the decision to decide have made the decision that the child is a runaway. It slows things down.
And there was a window of time that maybe she could have been found if there was more hustle put on her being someone who was abducted or missing versus a child who ran away. Yeah, the runaway allegation was very strange to me. But I think police arrived at that decision because witnesses saw Alex leaving. That's where I thought it would have come from is that people saw her leaving, not necessarily under duress.
But just considering everything that the family was going through with this separation and trying to get this man out of their lives, it would feel odd to me that the police wouldn't kind of immediately look into that. Since according to Alex's mom, he had threatened her and Alex. So it's like, if this child comes up missing and an adult has threatened a child's life, which is a coward thing to do, then I would look into that personally as an investigator. And maybe they did.
And we just don't know about it. But it's really sad because it seems like the window of time was small for Alex to get home safely. Yeah. And to also have the information that hours prior to that, you know, I'm sure she said I was just with her, you know, hours before this we ate together. So why would she quote run away as if to like, you know, get back in time before your mom gets home? Yeah, I don't know. It was all just a stretch for me.
And again, just really sad to see that that was that was the jump. But my my next question was what what was your opinion on on the red car? Yeah, all things considered. I think it's kind of an interesting detail. It does like, leave the table open for me as like somebody like looking at this, like, of course, like I have suspicions about the mother's ex boyfriend.
But I would also want to look into this tip and see if I could run that down and rule it out one way or the other, because that's a different description than the ex boyfriend. So that's that's like an interesting point to me. And I think it's kind of an important point, because sometimes it is easy to get tunnel vision in these things. And like, yes, Occam's razor, what is the most likely is usually the answer.
But like, when you're dealing with matters such as this, such as this, it has to be like beyond a reasonable doubt. So it's like you have to kind of look into that lead as well. So that's something that I would want to know if they ever found out about. But we never hear about it again. Yeah, it's always sad when it's only brought up one time, but it's something that someone remembered. So that's why I think it sticks out to me and why my mind was hanging on to it.
Immediately, what I filled in, in my head was that the ex boyfriend and I guess, technically, he is the father of the twins, right, that he basically sent someone else over there that all of the girls maybe knew maybe, maybe another like a friend of his. I filled it in in my head in that it wasn't just one person that got her out of the house to leave willingly if that's what happened. So one thing I will say is, I really try to pick up clues in like what investigators do say.
Sometimes there are breadcrumbs that are dropped in what they say to the public and it's usually very crafted very specifically. So one thing I will say is that the FBI, again and again, refer to it as a singular person involved in this case. So that makes me think that wherever they think this case is headed, that it is just one person that is involved in Alex's crime. And if I remember correctly, the mom had no idea who that person could be.
Like she didn't recognize like a white man with a red car. Like that didn't ring any bells for her. So I'm always a little reluctant to pivot to details and cases like this, but I think I'm mentioning it because I'd like to just discuss the personal versus not personal arguments surrounding her being dismembered. I think sometimes in certain cases, it can look very personal to do that to someone in order to discard and get rid of and hide what you have done.
But also, you've seen it as not personal in any way. And I guess I just wanted to kind of get your take on that. And this is not to discuss the morbidity of it, but more just why that? Whenever I see a detail like that, they're trying to make it more difficult to ID the victim by removing the head. You don't have dental records by removing the limbs. You don't have any kind of fingerprint.
I think that that's what was happening here, that it was an attempt to make it more difficult to ID the body. And to some degree, that works. It takes three weeks for them to positively ID her. I was a little shocked to hear that there was a whole hearing about him and he was found not guilty. My insides just screamed out for her. And I'm glad that she yelled at the jury at the courtroom. It was, I think, a devastating blow to someone who had already lost everything.
Yeah. I tried to track down the court transcripts to kind of try to figure out more of what happened here. How did the jury get to not guilty? Because all I know about it is what was reported in the newspapers, which was the story of him standing on the roof of the car, him on the roof making the keys, and him admitting to police that he had been watching the family.
So based off all of that, maybe there was some weird loophole where it doesn't quite meet this definition of whatever the charge was. Maybe it was something like that. But yeah, I'm not sure where the reasonable doubt came in or what arguments were made to get to the not guilty verdict. But that is the verdict that was reached, was not guilty. Not guilty is not innocence. It is just not guilty. Just again, to just drive it home, like he was not charged in any way with Alex's death.
So if police were ever to want to bring charges against him for that, they would be able to. There wouldn't be a double jeopardy there. But to date, he has never been charged with anything in regards to Alex's death. All in all, what I walked away with was just a lot of sorrow and heartbreak for her mother. The last thing that I wrote, you know, before you wrapped up the timeline was that this is a very unfair truth to be forced to live with.
For me, I hope that in this case, we are able to get to a point where we do get answers for Alex and her family because her mother is still very much wanting answers in what happened to her daughter. And the case is still with the FBI. And I am hopeful that they are able to access, you know, the latest technology as it becomes available and it becomes reliable to try to test whatever evidence they do have to try to get an answer and hold somebody responsible for what they did to Alex.
It's never going to bring her back, but somebody should be held accountable for what they did to her. The FBI did mention that there's like a religious gold medallion that Alex wore quite a bit. There's pictures with her with it on. So we'll have pictures of that on our Instagram. But police are really kind of holding on to this necklace that it's likely that her killer could have held on to it all these years.
So it's one of those things like if you think you've seen it in a drawer, in a cabinet, maybe somebody wears it, like just call it in, give that tip in so that way Alex can have an answer and like her family can have an answer because this is heinous. It's just heinous. And it's nobody who does this to a child should be out walking around without rehabilitation and time served for their crime. Again, if you know anything about the murder of Alexandra Anaya in August of 2005, please call the FBI.
At 1-800-CALL-FBI. That's 1-800-225-5324. And we will have pictures of Alex on our Instagram as well as the gold medallion. So that way that picture is out there as well. So you can take a look at it. If it jogs memory, please call the FBI. That will all be on our Instagram at Cold and Missing. Thank you so much if you have left us a written review or rated us in your podcast app. We appreciate it so much. And if you haven't yet, today is a new day and you can do it right now.
So thank you so much. It helps others find this podcast and it helps get stories out there and other people get aware of these stories. So that's all because of you. So thank you. And then if you want to leave a review on our website, you can do that too. You can go to www.coldandmissing.com. We also have transcripts there if you or someone you love is hard of hearing, you can follow along the podcast that way. But that is all that I have. Thank you so much for listening to Cold and Missing.
I'm Allie. And I'm Eli. Have a good week and stay safe, y'all. Stay safe, y'all.