We, the members of Unit 1012, will honor and remember 9-year-old Diana
Belinda Alvarez on May 17 and May 29 every year.
We, the members of Unit 1012: The VFFDP, will make her one of The
82 murdered children of Unit 1012, where we will not forget her. Let us
remember how she lived and not how she died. We will always support her family
members.
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Diana
Belinda Alvarez
(May
17, 2007 to May 29, 2016)
[PHOTO
SOURCE: http://charleyproject.org/case/diana-belinda-alvarez]
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Diana
Belinda Alvarez
- Missing Since 05/29/2016
- Missing From Fort Myers, Florida
- Classification Endangered Missing
- Date of Birth 05/17/2007 (12)
- Age 9 years old
- Height and Weight 4'4, 95 pounds
- Clothing/Jewelry Description A short-sleeved shirt, blue shorts, and shoes. Possibly carrying a green blanket with a flower print.
- Distinguishing Characteristics Hispanic female. Black hair, brown eyes. Diana has two scars on her leg. Some agencies spell her last name "Alvares."
Diana was last
seen at her trailer home in the 3500 block of Unique Circle in Fort Myers, Lee County,
Florida on May 29, 2016. She lived with her stepfather and her mother, Uribe
Jimenez and Rita Hernandez, who was pregnant, and four younger siblings.
A relative saw her in the home at 2:00 a.m., asleep, wrapped in a green blanket with a flower print. She vanished during the night and has never been heard from again. The blanket vanished with her and has never been located. No one saw or heard anything unusual in the house that night.
Jorge Guerrero was quickly identified as a person of interest in Diana's case. A photo of Guerrero is posted with this case summary. He had known Diana's family for about three years and had lived in their home from June 2015 up until a few weeks before Diana's disappearance. Her parents had asked him to leave because they were concerned about the way Diana was behaving around him and about remarks he had made about the child; they were afraid he was having an "inappropriate relationship" with Diana.
On June 3, police located Guerrero and the car he was driving, a tan 2001 Chevrolet Malibu with the Florida license plate number 78NHD. He was detained at this time as an illegal immigrant. Diana wasn't with him, but police found pornographic photos of the child on his cellular phone.
Guerrero admitted he used crystal methamphetamine while living with Diana's family and that he had touched her inappropriately on a weekly basis during the eleven months he lived there, although he denied having had intercourse with her. He said he had no contact with Diana after he moved out and was not in Lee County when she went missing.
Authorities determined that after May 29 and before Guerrero was arrested, the phone was traced to Okeechobee, Yee-Haw Junction, back to Okeechobee, and then to Orlando, Florida. Guerrero said he was traveling between Okeechobee and Orlando when his black Chevrolet Malibu broke down and had to be towed.
The phone wasn't with him when police found him; it was eventually tracked to Daytona, Florida. A landscaper there had found it lying in high grass in Orange County, Florida and said a man called it, said his name was Jorge and told him to keep the phone. The landscaper never used the phone because he wasn't able to unlock it. Guerrero later admitted the phone belonged to him and gave investigators the passcode.
Guerrero was charged with possession of child pornography. Rita went to visit him in jail in July 2016 and spoke to him for twenty minutes. She stated he told her Diana wasn't dead, but when she asked where she was, he didn't give her a straight answer, refused to make eye contact with her and covered his face. At his trial on the child pornography charges, the fact that Guerrero is the prime suspect in Diana's disappearance was not mentioned to the jury.
In May 2017, nearly a year after Diana's disappearance and on the eve of her tenth birthday, Guerrero was found guilty of one count of possession of child pornography and one count of production of child pornography. In August was sentenced to forty years in prison; the next day, he was charged with lewd or lascivious molestation of a victim less than 12 years of age and battery of a child. The victim was Diana.
Various members of Diana's family accused each other of being involved in her disappearance, or of knowing more about it than they disclosed. Rita initially suspected Diana's biological father, Martin Alvarez-Moreno, could be involved.
In September 2013, according to Rita, Martin took two of their children, Diana's younger sister and brother, without permission and didn't return them for several months. Hernandez complained to family court at the time and filed a petition to force Martin to return the children, but a judge denied her request, saying there was no evidence Martin was in violation of any custody agreement. Eventually Rita retrieved her children from their father.
Martin was deported after a domestic dispute in August 2015 and lives in the city of Tehuacan in the state of Puebla in central Mexico. Investigators did visit Martin in Mexico and spoke to him about Diana's disappearance, but they haven't named him as a suspect in his daughter's case. He has denied any involvement in Diana's disappearance or any knowledge as to what happened to her.
In May 2018, a year after Guerrero was convicted of the child pornography charges, he was charged with first-degree murder in Diana's case. He is awaiting trial and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Diana's whereabouts are unknown and extensive searches of the area around her home have turned up no indication of her whereabouts. Foul play is suspected in her case due to the circumstances involved.
A relative saw her in the home at 2:00 a.m., asleep, wrapped in a green blanket with a flower print. She vanished during the night and has never been heard from again. The blanket vanished with her and has never been located. No one saw or heard anything unusual in the house that night.
Jorge Guerrero was quickly identified as a person of interest in Diana's case. A photo of Guerrero is posted with this case summary. He had known Diana's family for about three years and had lived in their home from June 2015 up until a few weeks before Diana's disappearance. Her parents had asked him to leave because they were concerned about the way Diana was behaving around him and about remarks he had made about the child; they were afraid he was having an "inappropriate relationship" with Diana.
On June 3, police located Guerrero and the car he was driving, a tan 2001 Chevrolet Malibu with the Florida license plate number 78NHD. He was detained at this time as an illegal immigrant. Diana wasn't with him, but police found pornographic photos of the child on his cellular phone.
Guerrero admitted he used crystal methamphetamine while living with Diana's family and that he had touched her inappropriately on a weekly basis during the eleven months he lived there, although he denied having had intercourse with her. He said he had no contact with Diana after he moved out and was not in Lee County when she went missing.
Authorities determined that after May 29 and before Guerrero was arrested, the phone was traced to Okeechobee, Yee-Haw Junction, back to Okeechobee, and then to Orlando, Florida. Guerrero said he was traveling between Okeechobee and Orlando when his black Chevrolet Malibu broke down and had to be towed.
The phone wasn't with him when police found him; it was eventually tracked to Daytona, Florida. A landscaper there had found it lying in high grass in Orange County, Florida and said a man called it, said his name was Jorge and told him to keep the phone. The landscaper never used the phone because he wasn't able to unlock it. Guerrero later admitted the phone belonged to him and gave investigators the passcode.
Guerrero was charged with possession of child pornography. Rita went to visit him in jail in July 2016 and spoke to him for twenty minutes. She stated he told her Diana wasn't dead, but when she asked where she was, he didn't give her a straight answer, refused to make eye contact with her and covered his face. At his trial on the child pornography charges, the fact that Guerrero is the prime suspect in Diana's disappearance was not mentioned to the jury.
In May 2017, nearly a year after Diana's disappearance and on the eve of her tenth birthday, Guerrero was found guilty of one count of possession of child pornography and one count of production of child pornography. In August was sentenced to forty years in prison; the next day, he was charged with lewd or lascivious molestation of a victim less than 12 years of age and battery of a child. The victim was Diana.
Various members of Diana's family accused each other of being involved in her disappearance, or of knowing more about it than they disclosed. Rita initially suspected Diana's biological father, Martin Alvarez-Moreno, could be involved.
In September 2013, according to Rita, Martin took two of their children, Diana's younger sister and brother, without permission and didn't return them for several months. Hernandez complained to family court at the time and filed a petition to force Martin to return the children, but a judge denied her request, saying there was no evidence Martin was in violation of any custody agreement. Eventually Rita retrieved her children from their father.
Martin was deported after a domestic dispute in August 2015 and lives in the city of Tehuacan in the state of Puebla in central Mexico. Investigators did visit Martin in Mexico and spoke to him about Diana's disappearance, but they haven't named him as a suspect in his daughter's case. He has denied any involvement in Diana's disappearance or any knowledge as to what happened to her.
In May 2018, a year after Guerrero was convicted of the child pornography charges, he was charged with first-degree murder in Diana's case. He is awaiting trial and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Diana's whereabouts are unknown and extensive searches of the area around her home have turned up no indication of her whereabouts. Foul play is suspected in her case due to the circumstances involved.
Investigating Agency
- Lee County Sheriff's Office 239-477-1000
Source Information
- The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
- Florida Department of Law Enforcement
- Fox 4 Now
- WINK News
- NBC 2
- The Indianapolis Star
- The News-Press
- NBC 29
- The Democrat and Chronicle
Updated 3 times since October 12, 2004.
Last updated May 6, 2018; details of disappearance updated.
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Diana
Belinda Alvarez
(May
17, 2007 to May 29, 2016)
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Diana Alvarez's mother wants
suspect in death to pay with his life: 'I hope you rot'
Melissa Montoya and Michael Braun, The News-Press
Published 10:59 a.m. ET May 3, 2018 | Updated 12:16 p.m. ET May 4, 2018
In 2½ weeks it will be two years since Diana
Alvarez disappeared from her south Lee County home.
Her mother, Rita Hernandez, has kept up hope she
would find her daughter alive, but Thursday she was given the news that her
9-year-old girl is likely dead. Her body has not been recovered, but the state
attorney’s office has enough evidence to pursue a first-degree murder charge
against the main suspect in the case.
Jorge Guerrero-Torres is already serving a 40-year
sentence for child porn production. And now, two days after turning 30, he
faces the possibility of life in prison after the state attorney’s office
announced a grand jury indicted him in the premeditated death of the child.
“I wasn’t expecting this news,” Hernandez said.
“But I have to accept the reality.”
Through tears she spoke to reporters in Spanish
about the decision. The mother has remained front and center in the case of her
daughter’s disappearance and on Thursday she spoke about the pain of learning
the state believes Diana is dead.
The mother was also visibly upset because no one
told her about the state’s plan to convene a grand jury.
Hernandez said it was better to know than not know.
“I have a lot of anger inside for this person,” she
said as she slammed her hand on a picture of Guerrero-Torres. “My daughter is
not alive, and she’s not with me.”
The announcement
The announcement to the media of the grand jury
indictment was made at 10 a.m. at the state attorney’s office.
“We would not rest until we saw Torres held
responsible for what he did to this little girl,” Chief Assistant State
Attorney Amira Fox said.
Lee County Undersheriff Carmine Marceno was also
present and declined to answer questions.
“We know today we will never bring Diana back, but
we also know that we hope that we bring some closure to her family,” Marceno
said. “Justice will be served.”
But closure was not on the mind of Hernandez. She
said she is resigned to the decision but that she was upset she was not made
aware of the decision to seek a murder indictment. She was never told by
investigators or victims advocates that authorities believed her daughter was
dead.
Grand jury procedures are “cloaked in secrecy,”
said Thomas Busatta, an attorney who has been helping the family.
“Historically, the family knows it’s going to the
grand jury for a first-degree indictment,” Busatta said. “It may not have been
handled the wrong way, and the mother should’ve known.”
In an email to The News-Press, Samantha Syoen,
spokeswoman for the state attorney’s office, said a representative of law
enforcement met with Hernandez on Thursday morning.
“We certainly empathize with the difficulty of a
mother having to deal with the reality that her daughter is gone,” Syoen said,
but she added, “We could not discuss the details and findings of the investigation
prior to the case being presented to the grand jury.”
In a news release to media, Syoen clarified that
two members of the state attorney’s office team and a Lee County Sheriff’s
Office investigator met with Hernandez and spent approximately two hours with
her explaining the legal process.
“The State Attorney’s Office works daily with
victims and victims’ families to ensure they are apprised of the status of
their cases,” she said. “Any information that can be provided that does not
compromise the law enforcement investigation is shared.”
Syoen said that if convicted, Guerrero-Torres could
face life in prison.
First-degree murder cases can lead to death penalty
sentences.
In this case Syoen said the state attorney’s office
would have to decide to convene the death penalty review committee.
“The committee, made up of experienced prosecutors
in our office, would review the facts of the case and the evidence and make a
decision if they feel the death penalty is warranted,” she said. “That opinion
would then be presented to State Attorney Steve Russell, who would make the
final decision on whether or not a motion to seek the death penalty would be
filed.”
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Diana
Alvarez's mother wants suspect in death to pay with his life: 'I hope you rot'
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But she declined to say if this was the case of
Guerrero-Torres.
“We do not comment on potential death penalty
decisions,” Syoen said.
Without hesitation, Hernandez said, she wants
Guerrero-Torres to pay with his life.
“Because if my daughter is not alive, he
doesn’t deserve to be living either,” Hernandez said.
No body cases
Since the 1800s there have been 501 murder trials
across the United States where the body of the victim was never recovered.
The data has been collected by Tad DiBiase, a
former federal prosecutor who tried a “no body case” and was successful. He now
works as a consultant to law enforcement who are investigating a homicide
without a body.
The data is up to date as of January 2018. Florida
is No. 2 with 34 no body trials. California, the top state, has 99 cases.
“Florida is definitely a high number just based on
population alone,” DiBiase said.
Fifty percent of the trials since the 1800's have
occurred since 2000, he said.
It’s becoming easier to determine whether someone
has died — because of technology and the fact that people “leave behind such
distinct electronic trails.”
In the case of children, it’s usually easier to
convince a jury that the child is dead, he said.
“One as young as 9 … it’s unlikely they walked
away,” DiBiase said.
Prosecutors don’t necessarily need the body to
prove murder, said Tamara Lave, a University of Miami law professor and a
former prosecutor in California.
They can use confessions, statements and other
evidence. And, Lave said, grand jury proceedings are not adversarial.
“It’s just a prosecutor with the jurors,” Lave
said. “The standard of proof is low.”
Prosecutors always want to make sure they can win a
case, but the risks are low in this one because Guerrero-Torres is already
serving a 40-year sentence, she said.
“They are not risking a dangerous person being out
on the street,” Lave said.
Additionally, she said, prosecutors could work a
deal out that could lead to Guerrero-Torres disclosing the location of Diana’s
body.
'I hope you rot'
Guerrero-Torres met Diana when he began renting a
room from Hernandez in their small home in the Sheltering Pines neighborhood.
He confessed to detectives that he had inappropriate contact with the girl
during that time. His conviction in federal court stemmed from pornographic
images of the child found on his phone.
She went missing on May 29, 2016. Hernandez woke up
to heat a bottle for one of her children and noticed she was missing.
In Puebla, Mexico, Diana’s father watched the news
conference that was broadcast online by the state attorney’s office but didn’t
understand it very well because he is a Spanish speaker.
He began to cry on the phone when a reporter told
him Guerrero-Torres was accused of killing Diana.
“I don’t know what is happening,” Martin Alvarez
Moreno said. Puebla is in the southeast region of the country. “How do you want
me to feel? Badly.”
Alvarez Moreno spent time in the U.S. before being
deported to Mexico. He is upset he hasn’t been able to be involved in the court
proceedings and had previously vowed to cross the border and return.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to return,” he
said.
Back in Southwest Florida, Hernandez has gone to
great lengths to find her daughter’s whereabouts, even paying fortune tellers
and tarot card readers for information. But, Busatta said, one of those
instances has turned criminal and was reported to the Sheriff’s Office.
“She’s done everything possible to find her
daughter, and people have taken advantage of her,” Busatta said.
Hernandez’s message to Guerrero-Torres on Thursday
was: “What did I do to you?”
“I hope you rot where you are for what you did to
my daughter,” she said. “I hope you pay for everything
you did, and if you did it to other girls, I hope you confess.”
Hernandez is resigned and has accepted that
investigators believe Diana is dead.
“We all wish we could keep searching, but if they
are giving me the news that my daughter is no longer alive … what else is there
to look for?”
On May 17, Diana’s 11th birthday, Hernandez is
holding a vigil to honor her daughter. The prayer vigil will be held near the
Lee County Jail in downtown Fort Myers. The vigil is scheduled to start at 6
p.m.
Previous coverage of Diana Alvarez's disappearance
2016: San Carlos missing girl's mother waits during
search
2016: Mother of missing San Carlos girl thinks
daughter is still alive
2016: Person of interest in Diana Alvarez case
detained
2016: Suspect in Diana Alvarez case charged with
child pornography
2016: Unendurable pain for Diana Alvarez's mother
2017: Search for Diana Alvarez continues one year
later
2017: Jorge Guerrero convicted on child porn
charges on eve of Diana Alvarez's 10th birthday
2017: Man linked to missing Diana Alvarez gets 40
years on child porn charges
INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.news-press.com/story/news/crime/2018/05/03/first-degree-murder-indictment-diana-alvarez-case/576567002/
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Pastor Tim Carson leads
the vigil. Rita Hernandez, her children and her partner, Uribe Jimenez, were
prayed for during the vigil for her missing daughter Dianna. A vigil was held
in honor of Diana Alvarez's birthday. She would have turned 11 Thursday, May
17, 2018. The vigil was open to the public and was held at Estero United
Methodist Church, in Estero, Florida. The man suspected in the 9-year-old's
2016 disappearance is suspected in her death. Though her body has not been
found, Jorge Guerrero-Torres is accused of killing Diana. (Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)
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