Two Women We Won't Forget Murdered in the '60s, Discovered
Two Women We Won't Forget Murdered in the '60s, Discovered in the '90s
Even quiet, blissfully suburban communities like Jericho can harbor dark, unspeakable secrets - horrors buried just below the surface, waiting to be unearthed.
Howard Elkins' terrible secret was uncovered on September 2 when the pregnant body of Reyna Angelica Marroquin, a Honduran immigrant murdered over three decades ago, was found mummified in a steel drum that was stored in a crawl space below a house on Forest Drive. The coroner's office ruled her cause of death was from a blow to the head.
The woman's unidentified body was discovered when Ronald Cohen, who sold the house last summer, had the drum removed at the request of the new owners. The gruesome find uncovered a fantastic month-long mystery that would challenge the investigative skills of the Nassau County Homicide Squad.
Police researched the history of the home, and learned that it changed ownership four times. Families had come and gone, unaware that they were living above a crudely-made sepulcher, in a house harboring a macabre secret. Interviewing all but the first owner, investigators determined that the murder was committed between 1963 and 1972. Later in the homicide probe, police narrowed the time frame significantly to between late 1968 and early 1969.
After several dead ends, detectives, using state-of-the-art forensic instruments, were able to decipher the victim's alien registration number from a document found inside her purse. With this information, investigators finally were able to establish Marroquin's identity and her birthdate - December 2, 1941, making her 26 or 27 when she died.
Also, by salvaging an address book that accompanied Marroquin's body, the Homicide squad obtained the name of an old confidante of the victim as well as Marroquin's employer, Howard Elkins, the original owner of the Jericho house.
Police contacted the victim's old friend, who 30 years ago met Marroquin while volunteering for a program that taught English and job skills to struggling immigrants.
Shortly before she disappeared, Marroquin feared that Elkins, her employer at Melrose Plastics in Manhattan, was going to kill her, the confidante recalled. Marroquin frequently talked about Elkins, how they had a relationship with each other, and how he had placed her in an apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey.
The day of her murder, a pregnant Marroquin called her friend in a panic, asking if she would come to her apartment. She explained that Elkins was enraged with her because she telephoned his wife and told her that Elkins was the father of her unborn child. She told her friend that Elkins threatened to kill her.
When the friend arrived at the apartment, Marroquin was missing, and was never seen again.
On September 9, Detective Sergeant Robert Edwards and Detective Brian Parpan traveled south to Boca Raton, Florida to interview Elkins. When Elkins asked them to leave, the two detectives warned him that they were returning with a warrant for his DNA. A DNA test would determine whether or not he was the father of Marroquin's unborn child.
The next day, Elkins fatally shot himself in the head.
If Elkins' act in itself didn't incriminate him, the evidence was pretty overwhelming. Police traced the origins of the steel drum and discovered that it contained a chemical found in the dye used at Melrose Plastics to paint artificial plants.
Police released the victim's name on September 29. A Newsday reporter later found Marroquin's family in El Salvador, including her mother, who lived to see her daughter's body returned to her country of origin.