Alex Henriquez: Murders, Trial, Verdict, and Appeal

Alex Henriquez is a former Bronx livery-cab driver convicted in 1992 of murdering three young females — Shamira Bello, 14, Lisa Ann Rodriguez, 21, and Jessica Guzman, 10 — whose bodies were found across the borough between 1988 and 1990. A jury in State Supreme Court in the Bronx found him guilty of three counts of second-degree murder for strangling the three, and he was sentenced to three consecutive terms of 25 years to life, a total of 75 years to life in prison.¹ He has maintained his innocence since his arrest, saying the NYPD made him a scapegoat under community pressure to solve the killings.²

The Three Victims

The killings unfolded over roughly two years in and around the Unionport and Castle Hill sections of the Bronx.³

Shamira Bello, 14, was found strangled in July 1988, the first of the three deaths later attributed to Henriquez.²⁴⁵⁶

Investigators noted similarities among the deaths and eventually identified Henriquez as a common link. He was known to the victims or their families and was the last person to have seen at least one of them alive.⁵

Prior Criminal Record

By the time of the murder indictments, Henriquez had other serious cases pending. He was awaiting sentencing for scalding the three-year-old son of a former girlfriend and was being held without bail on an armed robbery charge in Manhattan.³ He received two to four years for the child scalding and five to fifteen years for the armed robbery. His 75-year murder sentence did not begin until those earlier terms were completed.²

The Trial and the Evidence

Henriquez was tried in State Supreme Court in the Bronx before Justice Daniel J. Sullivan. The six-week trial began in the summer of 1992, and the case against him was described as almost completely circumstantial.⁴

The prosecution leaned on forensic hair and fiber analysis. NYPD detective Francis X. Callery testified that three strands of hair found on Shamira Bello’s clothing matched Henriquez’s hair, and that fibers recovered from all three victims matched material taken from a vacuum cleaner in his apartment and from a spool of red thread kept there.⁷ Prosecutors also introduced statements Henriquez had made to police and to private citizens, some of them recorded using equipment loaned by law enforcement.⁸ Prosecutors told the jury he killed “for the pure thrill of it.”⁹

Defense attorney Mel A. Sachs attacked the forensic evidence and got Detective Callery to concede on cross-examination that hair and fiber comparisons do not carry the same scientific weight as DNA testing or fingerprint analysis.⁷ Sachs argued that Henriquez was prosecuted because of intense community pressure to find a killer, not because the evidence warranted it.⁹

Verdict and Sentence

On August 28, 1992, the jury found Henriquez guilty on all three counts of second-degree murder.⁴ On September 21, 1992, Justice Sullivan sentenced him to three consecutive terms of 25 years to life, a combined minimum of 75 years.¹ One juror later told the press that Henriquez “was always around where things happen” and that everyone in the jury room believed he had committed the murders.²

The Appeal

Henriquez appealed to the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, First Department. He argued that statements he made to police should have been suppressed because his right to counsel had already attached through the lawyer representing him on the armed robbery charge, and that the recorded statements to private citizens should have been suppressed because those individuals were effectively acting as police agents. He also challenged the continued participation of a juror who required treatment for methadone withdrawal during deliberations.⁸

On April 25, 1995, the Appellate Division unanimously affirmed. The court found that his robbery attorney had made only a vague remark that did not enter the murder case, and it held that the private citizens who recorded him acted on their own initiative rather than at police direction. The court described the evidence of guilt as “overwhelming” and said that even if the challenged statements to police had been improperly admitted, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because the statements were “relatively unimportant and largely duplicative” of other evidence.⁸ The New York Court of Appeals later denied leave to appeal further.¹⁰

Where He Is Now and What He Still Says

Henriquez has been imprisoned for more than three decades. As of 2018 he was held at Sullivan Correctional Facility in New York State, and he continues to insist he is innocent, arguing that the NYPD used him to placate an anguished community.²

Jessica Guzman Way

In August 2025, the intersection of Castle Hill and Seward avenues in the Bronx was officially renamed Jessica Guzman Way. It was the last place Jessica was seen alive before her disappearance in 1990. A mural was unveiled at the site, and Jessica’s mother, Milagros Guzman, attended alongside family and longtime neighbors. The Guzman family hosted a back-to-school bookbag giveaway and provided free food at the ceremony to thank community members who had helped search for Jessica 35 years earlier.¹¹

1
The New York Times. Man Guilty of 3 Slayings Gets 75 Years
2
HuffPost UK. Is Alex Henriquez a Triple Serial Killer or an Innocent Man Made a Scapegoat by the NYPD
3
The New York Times. Intricate Trail to Bronx Murder Charges
4
The New York Times. Bronx Man Is Convicted in 3 Slayings
5
UPI. Police Seek Links in Deaths of 3 Children, Possible 4th Case
6
The New York Times. 10-Year-Old Bronx Girl Is Found Dead a Week After Disappearing
7
The New York Times. Fiber Evidence Links Defendant to 3 Victims at a Bronx Trial
8
PlainSite. People v. Henriquez
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Orlando Sentinel. Cabdriver Found Guilty of Strangling 3 Females
10
vLex. People v. Henriquez
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News 12 Long Island. Jessica Guzman Way: Castle Hill Intersection Renamed for Child Victim of 1990 Murder