Andrea Michelle Reyes was 23 months old when her mother, Rosa Tenorio, allegedly abducted her from her New Haven, Conn., home.
The toddler was in the custody of her father at the time of her abduction on October 5, 1999, and it was suspected that Tenorio had taken the little girl to Mexico, the New Haven Department of Police Service said in a press release. A felony arrest warrant was issued for Tenorio.
Though Reyes’ father went to Mexico multiple times to look for the child, his attempts to locate her were never successful, and he never heard from Reyes or her mother. The search continued, however, and Reyes’ age-progressed photos were shared by organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Reyes, now 27 years old, was finally found after a Connecticut detective began re-investigating the cold case abduction in 2023. New Haven Detective Kealyn Nivakoff was able to pinpoint Reyes’ location in Puebla, southeast of Mexico City, thanks to social media posts, interviews, and search warrants.
Nivakoff reached out to Reyes directly and verified her identity with the help of Othram, a Texas DNA testing company. The company used DNA to confirm the relationship between Reyes and her father, leading the two to reconnect after 25 years.
In a statement, Othram noted that this is just one of the cases that’s been investigated as part of its Project 525 initiative, in which Othram has partnered with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System to try to resolve the 525 missing juvenile cases published within its database.
“While cases may have investigative leads exhausted at the time, no cold case is ever truly closed. We remain committed to resolving every cold case and this is a perfect example of that effort,” Chief Karl Jacobson says in the New Haven police release.
It’s believed that Tenorio is still living in Mexico. Though her arrest warrant remains active, it is only valid in the U.S.
