A Washington man has been arrested in the murder of a 13-year-old girl who was found shot along the side of a rural road that went unsolved for nearly three decades, authorities said.
Franklin County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Jesse Lee Castillo, 51, Monday in connection with the murder of Anna Pelayo, who was found shot in the head near Pasco, Washington, on December 28, 1997, the Tri-City Herald reported.
“She will always be my big sister, but as I grew up…we never gave up hope that this would come to justice,” Her younger sister, Nikki Cook said following the announcement of Castillo’s arrest.
Authorities were able to arrest Castillo – and identify a second suspect – thanks to newer DNA technology. Castillo and Jose Luis Silva, who died of an overdose in 2018, were both acquaintances of Pelayo and were named as persons of interest at the time of her death.
Castillo, who was 23 when Pelayo was killed, is being held in the Franklin County Jail on suspicion of second-degree murder.
Pelayo was found abandoned on the road with a gunshot wound to the head and taken to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland, where she died in surgery.
The teen was last seen walking through the parking lot of her apartment complex the night of her death. She had called her father for a ride, but became angry and left the area before he arrived, her mother, Christine, told the Tri-City Herald at the time. It’s unclear what she was angry about or why she left the lot.
Pelayo was found barely clinging to life early the next morning along a rural road. Investigators believed she was abandoned there after being shot. She was taken to the hospital, where she died during surgery, according to the Tri-City Herald.
In the days after her murder, Pelayo’s mother told the newspaper that her daughter had recently started associating with gang members and had run away from home after the family moved to the area just a few months earlier.
Pelayo had been a good student but wanted protection after she was assaulted at school, her mother said.
DNA was found on the teen after her killing, and both Castillo and Silva were named as people of interest after the killing. Officials had been looking for Catillo recently and found him via a traffic camera system in the Yakima, Washington, area, authorities said.
Cook, who was just nine years old at the time of her murder, thanked the sheriff’s office through tears for their commitment to her sister’s case.
“I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, to all those who worked on this case for the past 27 years…and especially to those who helped putting these final pieces together,” Cook said during a press conference with her mother and father.
Sheriff Jim Raymond had to choke back tears when talking about the case Tuesday, which he said had weighed on the community now for many years.
“I want to thank our dedicated detectives and partner agencies who worked tirelessly to see justice served. Their persistence, combined with the evolution of forensic technology, allowed us to finally take this critical step forward. We hope this arrest brings some measure of peace to Anna’s family and loved ones, who have waited far too long for answers,” Raymond said.
