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On the morning of February 5, 2019, a road crew doing cleanup in Greenwich, Connecticut, spotted a red suitcase dumped in a wooded backyard, and ended up calling 911.
“I was notified by my detective lieutenant that there was a body in a suitcase,” said Det. Anthony Fiscella, now retired from the Greenwich Police Department, as seen in a preview of the “Portrait of a Tragedy” episode of Buried in the Backyard, airing Saturday, August 23 at 8/7c p.m. on
The grim discovery was made six days after 24-year-old Valerie Reyes had gone missing from her home in New Rochelle, New York.
“As we approached the scene, I walk down the embankment,” said Greenwich Police Department Det. Sgt. Pierangelo Corticelli. “I see the suitcase. We approach and see the victim.”
Learn more about what investigators discovered about the body in the suitcase found in Greenwich and its shocking condition.
What happened to Valerie Reyes?
Detectives observed that the victim found in the suitcase, like Reyes, was a woman in her 20s with medium-length black hair and a number of tattoos.
“She was taped with this packing tape, from her chin up to the top of her nose, and wrapped multiple times,” Fiscella said.
The period leading up to the discovery of the body had been frigid, with several days of single-digit temperatures.
“The body was literally frozen,” Corticelli said.
When the medical examiner arrived at 11 a.m., the victim was removed from the suitcase and her body was examined.
“She had ice crystals about her face and neck and her bare feet,” Fiscella said.
The victim also had visible signs of trauma on her body.
“We noticed her hands had some minor abrasions on them, a fingernail broken on one of the hands,” Corticelli said.
The injuries told a terrible story of what had happened in the victim’s final moments. “This girl fought for her life,” said Fiscella.
Find out more about how investigators identified the victim and her killer on the “Portrait of a Tragedy” episode of Buried in the Backyard, airing Saturday, August 23 at 8/7c p.m. on Oxygen.
