Woman's remains that washed up on Florida shore in 1985 identified nearly 30 years later after her daughters made repeated claims to that their father dismembered her and baby
by Snejana Farberoy Daily Mail Published 23 May 2013
Gloria Hampton and her
sister, Bernisa Davis, had spent years trying to convince police that
their mother was murdered and dismembered by her abusive boyfriend in
1985.
In 2012, 27 years after a woman's remains had washed ashore from South Dade to Sunny Isles Beach, cold case investigators finally confirmed that the unnamed victim was the sisters’ slain mother, Nilsa Padilla.
As children, Hampton said she and her sister were brutally beaten and molested by Nunez, who would force the girls to perform sexual acts on him and rape them almost every day, NBC 6 South Florida reported.
For years, the troubled family lived in a camper on Key Biscayne. Hampton and Davis recalled being neglected by their hard-drinking, drugged out parents, and having to feed themselves by fishing for shrimp and crabs.
'Monster': Nilsa Padilla's abusive boyfriend, Jorge Nunez, is the prime
suspect in the woman's gruesome murder, and it is believed that he also
killed her youngest daughter, Alicia, in a fit of rage
Then in April 1985, the violence and abuse came to ahead when Hampton said Nunez murdered her mother in front of her terrified, screaming children.
Davis recalled in an interview with Broward Palm Beach NewTimes that it all started when she went to her intoxicated mother and told her how Nunez would fondle her and her sister. The boyfriend was away from home at the time on a liquor run.
Instead of comforting the girl, Padilla smacked her across the face, drawing blood.
When Nunez returned from the store at night, Padilla confronted him. From their bunk beds, the three sisters watched in horror how the bearded, inebriated man repeatedly struck their mother with a beer bottle.
When the injured woman tried to escape through the back door of the trailer, Nunez shoved her back inside.
'He closed the door and then he finished her off,' Davis recalled.
The sisters do not remember Nunez dismembering their mother's body, but Hampton recalled seeing the man stuff the remains into an army-green bag.
But that was not the end of the horror for the abused little girls. A few weeks later, Davis said Nunez struck her younger sister Alicia, a toddler, across the head because he thought she didn't finished her cereal.
'He knocked her so hard, and she looked at me and she was in my arms and she said "I love you" in Spanish and then she passed out,' Davis recalled her slain sibling’s final moments.
On April 4, 1985, a passerby walking along the beach in Miami stumbled upon a green garbage bag wedged between two boulders.
Police who arrived on the scene discovered a women's torso inside. Her head and limbs were nowhere to be found. Police dubbed the gruesome find 'Theresa Torso.'
Over the next two weeks, more human body parts surfaced all around Biscayne Bay.
The victim's head was found floating in Government Cut; one of her legs made landfall on Fisher Island, while a thigh was found in front of a hotel in Sunny Isles Beach.
At the time, police investigators believed that the gristly discoveries were connected to the drug trade, where brutal murders are commonplace.
Over the years, Nilsa Padilla's daughter Gloria approached detectives with her horrific tale, but no one believed her.
Then in 2010, Hampton walked into the office of Sgt. Buck McCully, the head of Miami-Dade Police Department’s Cold Case Unit, and told him point-blank: 'I saw my father kill my mother when I was 4 years old. He put her body into an army-green bag.'
Mystery solved: Hampton appealed for help to Sgt. Buck McCully, the head
of Miami-Dade Police Department's Cold Case Unit, who believed her
story after seeing a photo of the green bag containing the torso
In 2012, 27 years after a woman's remains had washed ashore from South Dade to Sunny Isles Beach, cold case investigators finally confirmed that the unnamed victim was the sisters’ slain mother, Nilsa Padilla.
According
to Hampton and Davis, their mother was brutally murdered and cut into
pieces by Jorge Nunez, who is also suspected of killing the women’s
younger sister.
Horrible crime: Nilsa Padilla (left), a mother of three, was beaten to
death in front of her children and then dismembered in April 1985 in
Florida
Gruesome find: A passerby came across a woman's torso stuffed into an
army-green trash bag wedged between two boulders on a South Florida
beach
More remains: Over a period of two weeks in April 1985, a woman's body
parts were discovered all around Biscayne Bay, including the victim's
head
As children, Hampton said she and her sister were brutally beaten and molested by Nunez, who would force the girls to perform sexual acts on him and rape them almost every day, NBC 6 South Florida reported.
For years, the troubled family lived in a camper on Key Biscayne. Hampton and Davis recalled being neglected by their hard-drinking, drugged out parents, and having to feed themselves by fishing for shrimp and crabs.
Then in April 1985, the violence and abuse came to ahead when Hampton said Nunez murdered her mother in front of her terrified, screaming children.
Davis recalled in an interview with Broward Palm Beach NewTimes that it all started when she went to her intoxicated mother and told her how Nunez would fondle her and her sister. The boyfriend was away from home at the time on a liquor run.
Instead of comforting the girl, Padilla smacked her across the face, drawing blood.
When Nunez returned from the store at night, Padilla confronted him. From their bunk beds, the three sisters watched in horror how the bearded, inebriated man repeatedly struck their mother with a beer bottle.
When the injured woman tried to escape through the back door of the trailer, Nunez shoved her back inside.
'He closed the door and then he finished her off,' Davis recalled.
The sisters do not remember Nunez dismembering their mother's body, but Hampton recalled seeing the man stuff the remains into an army-green bag.
But that was not the end of the horror for the abused little girls. A few weeks later, Davis said Nunez struck her younger sister Alicia, a toddler, across the head because he thought she didn't finished her cereal.
'He knocked her so hard, and she looked at me and she was in my arms and she said "I love you" in Spanish and then she passed out,' Davis recalled her slain sibling’s final moments.
When
the little girl went limp, the man allegedly took her body and tossed
it in the rash 'like a piece of garbage,' according to Davis.
Predator: Gloria
Hampton (left), pictured with her sister Bernisa Davis (right) and Jorge
Nunez, claimed that the man had sexually abused and raped both of them
Futile efforts: Bernisa Davis (left) and Gloria Hampton (right) spent
years trying to convince detectives that their father had murdered their
mother before their eyes and then stuffed her remains into a green bag
Police who arrived on the scene discovered a women's torso inside. Her head and limbs were nowhere to be found. Police dubbed the gruesome find 'Theresa Torso.'
Over the next two weeks, more human body parts surfaced all around Biscayne Bay.
The victim's head was found floating in Government Cut; one of her legs made landfall on Fisher Island, while a thigh was found in front of a hotel in Sunny Isles Beach.
At the time, police investigators believed that the gristly discoveries were connected to the drug trade, where brutal murders are commonplace.
Over the years, Nilsa Padilla's daughter Gloria approached detectives with her horrific tale, but no one believed her.
Then in 2010, Hampton walked into the office of Sgt. Buck McCully, the head of Miami-Dade Police Department’s Cold Case Unit, and told him point-blank: 'I saw my father kill my mother when I was 4 years old. He put her body into an army-green bag.'
McCully was initially sceptical, but
when he opened a binder containing the photograph of the unidentified
woman's torso inside a green bag, he became convinced that Hampton was
telling the truth.
DNA analysis has confirmed that the remains found in April 1985 on Biscayne Bay indeed belonged to Nilsa Padilla.
'When I called her and I said listen, we found your mother, she was ecstatic, she said you have given me my life back, I'm not crazy. Everybody told her she was crazy her whole life,’ McCully said.
Nunez, an illegal immigrant from Peru whose criminal history in the U.S. stretched back to at least 1972, lost custody of Padilla's daughters and was eventually deported back to his home country. Davis and Hampton are convinced he is still alive somewhere.
He was never charged with his girlfriend’s murder, and Hampton is holding out hope that one day she and her sister will come face to face with him in court.
And from this page
Fugitive Profile as of November 9th, 2014 (based on 2012 AMW archive):
Sex: Male
Race: Hispanic
Current Age: 64-66
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 200 lbs.
Hair (Color, Description, Facial Hair): Brown
Eyes: Brown
Traits and Habits:
-Served prison time for sexual assault of a child
-Known to be a heavy drinker
-Was deported from the U.S. to Peru in 2004
Who to call if you've seen him: Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers 1-866-471-TIPS
Jorge Walter Nunez aka Jorge Walter Nunez Paz was the unanimous pick of every poster here for #1 most wanted fugitive of 2012. In a case that enraged me more than any other in years, Nunez-Paz was a violent and abusive father of three young girls. They lived off the grid in Florida, and the girls were forced to steal food and clothes for the family to survive. After one of the girls told their mother and Paz's wife he was touching them, Paz allegedly beat their mother to death in 1985 (the body was found ashore but not identified until 2010).
In addition to all this, one day he beat the youngest of the three into a state of unconsciousness and the two adult sisters have not seen her since. Oh, and a plastic bag with body parts belonging to an unidentified male washed ashore with Paz's wife.
I don't know if this could be the Jorge from the story above, but if he is, the town of Greenacres catches one's eye as that is where Christy Luna went missing from.
Aliases: Jorge Nunez-Paz: Jorge W. Nunez, Nery Contreras, Jorge Nunez, Jorge Walter Nunez, and Rafael Guzman.
Video on the Padilla case
DNA analysis has confirmed that the remains found in April 1985 on Biscayne Bay indeed belonged to Nilsa Padilla.
'When I called her and I said listen, we found your mother, she was ecstatic, she said you have given me my life back, I'm not crazy. Everybody told her she was crazy her whole life,’ McCully said.
Nunez, an illegal immigrant from Peru whose criminal history in the U.S. stretched back to at least 1972, lost custody of Padilla's daughters and was eventually deported back to his home country. Davis and Hampton are convinced he is still alive somewhere.
He was never charged with his girlfriend’s murder, and Hampton is holding out hope that one day she and her sister will come face to face with him in court.
And from this page
Fugitive Profile as of November 9th, 2014 (based on 2012 AMW archive):
Sex: Male
Race: Hispanic
Current Age: 64-66
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 200 lbs.
Hair (Color, Description, Facial Hair): Brown
Eyes: Brown
Traits and Habits:
-Served prison time for sexual assault of a child
-Known to be a heavy drinker
-Was deported from the U.S. to Peru in 2004
Who to call if you've seen him: Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers 1-866-471-TIPS
Jorge Walter Nunez aka Jorge Walter Nunez Paz was the unanimous pick of every poster here for #1 most wanted fugitive of 2012. In a case that enraged me more than any other in years, Nunez-Paz was a violent and abusive father of three young girls. They lived off the grid in Florida, and the girls were forced to steal food and clothes for the family to survive. After one of the girls told their mother and Paz's wife he was touching them, Paz allegedly beat their mother to death in 1985 (the body was found ashore but not identified until 2010).
In addition to all this, one day he beat the youngest of the three into a state of unconsciousness and the two adult sisters have not seen her since. Oh, and a plastic bag with body parts belonging to an unidentified male washed ashore with Paz's wife.
~ ~ ~
I don't know if this could be the Jorge from the story above, but if he is, the town of Greenacres catches one's eye as that is where Christy Luna went missing from.
Miami Murder Solved With Recovered Memories Two Decades Later
Per the article linked above, Nunez traveled as far north as Connecticut: "None of the arrests stuck, however. And so it was that Nuñez and Padilla, with Bernisa and newborn Gloria in tow, showed up smelling of alcohol at her cousin Maggie Soto's front door in Hartford, Connecticut — where she'd moved with her family — during the summer of 1981."
Aliases: Jorge Nunez-Paz: Jorge W. Nunez, Nery Contreras, Jorge Nunez, Jorge Walter Nunez, and Rafael Guzman.
Video on the Padilla case
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