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By William K. Rashbaum, The New York Times
She recently had a pedicure. Her teeth were pristine. She had not
taken drugs and had no criminal record.
Those facts, along with a haunting sterling silver pendant depicting
a blazing sun, are among the few clues the police have to solve the
mysterious killing of a young woman. Her nearly naked body was set
ablaze on May 7 outside an auto repair shop on a desolate block in
Sunset Park, Brooklyn, the police said yesterday.
Detectives have been unable to identify the woman, who the medical
examiner has said was between 15 and 30 years old, and this has all
but stymied their investigation. They are not even sure of her race,
according to James B. McCafferty, one of the detectives investigating
the case, although he said they were leaning toward concluding she
was Hispanic.
And because she was well groomed and partial fingerprints taken
indicated that she had no criminal record, investigators believe she
was neither homeless nor a prostitute. But no one in the New York
area has reported as missing anyone matching her description, they
said. That and the pendant, which was made in Mexico, have led
investigators to believe she may have been an immigrant, or possibly
a runaway.
"The focus of our investigation is to try and identify the victim,"
said Detective McCafferty, of the Brooklyn South Homicide Squad,
which is investigating the killing with detectives from the 72nd
Precinct. "We'll have direction once we know who she is."
Investigators believe that she may have been killed elsewhere, the
detective said, and dumped in a narrow parking area beside the
garage, which shares the block with a strip club and a welder's shop,
about a block from the Gowanus Expressway and a giant Costco store.
The motive for the killing is also unclear, and the office of the
city's chief medical examiner is still investigating whether she was
sexually assaulted, Detective McCafferty said.
Investigators are hoping that the small silver pendant, a burning sun
that bears an eerie image of a face with a crescent moon superimposed
on it, will help identify the woman. Detective McCafferty said she
was found face down on the asphalt, her head beneath the front bumper
of a 1993 blue four-door Oldsmobile at the back of the narrow parking
area. The car was backed up against a graffiti-covered brick wall,
where long weeds have begun to peek through the greasy pavement.
The woman, who was about 5-foot-1 and 140 pounds, was found after
midnight on May 7 when a mechanic at the garage, who lives with his
family nearby, called the Fire Department to report a burning car,
Detective McCafferty said.
The mechanic, Edwin Negron, said he had returned from church about 10
p.m. and that the parking alley beside the garage, D. L. J.
Enterprises on 39th Street, was quiet. But about two hours later, the
shop's alarm went off, apparently triggered by the fire, and Mr.
Negron said he smelled smoke.
The firefighters were there "in seconds," he said, and made their way
to the back of the parking area and found the burning body and a
heavy odor of gasoline. The woman was wearing only panties. Someone,
apparently her killer, the police said, had doused her head and upper
body with gasoline and set her afire, making it difficult for the
medical examiner to determine how she was killed. There were no
apparent signs of trauma, but that does not mean the fire might not
have masked such marks, Detective McCafferty said.
Mr. Negron said the fire was so intense, it melted the car's front
bumper.
Detective McCafferty said the police were asking anyone with
information to call the Police Department's Crime Stoppers hot line
at 1-800-577-TIPS (1-800-577-8477).
Mr. Negron said the killing has him concerned for his family. "It's
sad," he said. "It could be me; it could be my sister." Now, he said,
he has asked his wife to call him when she leaves their church on
47th Street after dark so he can meet her on the corner of their
block.
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