When he was first arrested last month, Conrado Juarez confessed to raping and killing 4-year-old Anjelica Castillo in 1991, then discarding a cooler with her body inside – a crime that would be known as the Baby Hope case for two decades. Then, in a later interview, he recanted the confession and said he had found Anjelica dead after a fall down the stairs. When Juarez finally pleaded not guilty on Thursday, it turned out he had changed his story four times, at one point admitting to trying to rape her but not killing her; at another saying he helped dispose of the cooler but did not know there was a body inside. Juarez says the confession he gave after an all-night interrogation was coerced, but police insist it’s solid, so unless someone changes their story again, it looks like a jury may get to decide.
