New York City in the 1980’s

It was 1984. Ronald Regan was elected president. Prince dominated the radio with Purple Rain, and Footloose was a smash hit at the box office. Tetris was born, America was battling the AIDS crisis, and the crack cocaine epidemic was in full force in America’s urban communities.

New York City in the 1970’s and 80’s was described by CBS Local as “the quintessential portrait of a gritty city, slowly and grudgingly starting to clean up its act.” Street crime and homicide were at an all-time high. Assault, burglary, and abuse, rampant. New York’s reputation was that of a violent and out of control city, with sex and needles and crack abundant on almost every corner.

Time Square was the epicenter of the sex industry—a mecca of peep shows and adult video shops—long before the M&M store and Olive Garden took over, transforming it into the expensive and gentrified playground we recognize today. This was a dark period. A period whose graffiti splashed photos fascinate me. But it wasn’t exactly a safe place to raise a family.

Ramona and Narciso Torres, two Puerto Rican natives living in New York City, needed a change. They met and fell in love in New York City and had two young children, Angel (age 6), and Luis (age 10). Anyone who has ever lived in New York City knows how small most people’s apartments are, and theirs was no exception. The Torres family made due with their small apartment during a time when New York City wasn’t the safest place to live.

In 1990 alone, New York City reported a record-breaking 2,245 murders and over 100k robberies. The entire state of Maine? 30 murders, and 300 robberies.

Maine was safe, and offered the family the chance to own a home, 3 times the size of their New York apartment, with its own yard.

So, by 1985, they packed up the tiny NYC apartment and drove the 5.5 hours to Denmark, Maine to start a new life. And just a few years later, another son would come along, Jamel.

Who was Tony Torres?

Angel Torres was a popular kid. He was described by his friends as social and smart with an upbeat personality. He was active, and was great at basketball and soccer. He also loved music, dancing, and partying with his friends. One of my favorite photos of him, is of him and his mom dancing (see bottom of page). She’s holding a rose and it looks like he’s holding her in a salsa position, his face focused on the dance at hand, and a classic 90’s bow in her hair that reminds me of my mom. You can find that photo and more in the episode link in the show notes and on murdershetold.com.

His dad said he was “very popular with the young ladies”, which rubbed some of the boys at school the wrong way. Narciso mentioned to the Press Herald that he “remembers some of his classmates bristling at this brown skinned kid messing around with the white girls.” But despite the few salty classmates who couldn’t get dates, Angel was pretty well-liked and popular. Angel was a good student, and he didn’t get into much trouble.

Angel lived with his family in the little town of Denmark, Maine, population 1,148, an hour drive Northwest on 2 lane country roads from the nearest major city: Portland, ME. Angel attended, Bonny Eagle High School for a few years, a distant high school 40 minutes away and halfway to Saco for reasons I’m not privy, and then he transferred to and graduated from Fryeburg Academy in 1996 with several offers to colleges across New England.

He would get to know some of the party goers in the Old Orchard Beach / Saco / Biddeford area as a high schooler.

Tony heads off to out-of-state college

He decided to go out of state to Framingham State College (now University) in the suburbs of Boston to major in business, and minor in psychology and Spanish as a nod to his heritage. Ramona said his ultimate goal was to help underprivileged children.

While at school, family remained a priority, and he came home from school about once or twice a month to see them. While he was in Maine, home from school, he never passed up an opportunity to hang out with his old high school friends and attend parties. Despite living 150 miles away at college, Tony was still very well connected to the area.

Tony’s acquaintance is killed, and Tony knows who did it

In March of 1999, near the end of Angel’s junior year at Framingham, the talk of the town in Saco, Maine, was who killed fifteen-year-old Ashley Ouellette? The case hung over the surrounding area like a dark cloud. Tony came home for “spring break” (March is still a winter month in Maine!) to visit his parents, and one day while sitting in the living room watching the evening news, a story about Ashley came on. Upon seeing it, Tony turned to his father, Narciso and said “I know who killed her” in a way that he said left no room for doubt. He said he knew Ashley, and that he had hung out with her before at parties. Narciso responded with a warning, saying, “either go to the police, or keep your mouth shut, but be careful about who you share this with.”

Now, Narciso regrets giving that warning, and says that he wishes he could go back to that moment and immediately take Angel to the police station to tell them what he knew. At the time, he worried his son could get himself into some serious trouble, fearing that people who knew too much could be silenced.

Narciso and Ramona had no idea their son’s secret would disappear along with him just three months later.

Tony’s last visit with his mom

Tony returned to school after spring break to finish up his final semester of his junior year, and a couple of month later, in May, he got a job as a waiter for the summer. He had also just taken a major step with his girlfriend, Beth, and they leased an off-campus apartment together. He took another big step and brought her to Denmark to meet the family that Mother’s Day weekend. And after a nice weekend of getting to know his family, they returned to Boston to get ready for their move.

About a week after he returned to school, Tony called his parents to wish them a happy anniversary on May 19th, 1999. His mother quipped, “One day it’ll be you celebrating your own anniversary.” He said he’d call back in a few days as he and Beth had just moved into their new apartment in the tiny wooded town of Barre, Massachusetts, and their new landline phone service hadn’t been set up yet.

There was just one thing Tony left out of the conversation with his mother... He was in Maine. She believed he had returned to Massachusetts.

Ramona gets an alarming call

About a week later, Ramona picked up the phone, hoping it might be Tony. She hadn’t heard from him, but she knew he was busy with his apartment and his new job. But it was Beth, Tony’s girlfriend. She asked Ramona if she’d seen Tony, thinking he was there with his parents. He’d missed his shift at work at his new job back in Massachusetts, something that responsible Tony would never do.

Beth thought something might have come up while he was in Maine and he just forgot to call. Ramona said she hadn’t seen Tony since Mother’s Day weekend, and that they hadn’t made any plans for him to come home to visit. But Beth said that’s not what he told her, and that she had dropped him off at the bus station in Boston, Maine-bound, on Wednesday the 19th, the day of his parents’ anniversary...

Tony’s parents file a missing person report

Narciso and Ramona tried not to panic. Tony often came up to Maine to see his old school friends who mostly lived in Biddeford, an hour drive away from his parents. It was odd that he didn’t at least tell them that he was in Maine, or come to say hello, but Tony was 21, and didn’t need their permission. Something felt wrong about Beth calling looking for him and him missing work, so they filed a missing person’s report and the search for Angel Antonio Torres began.

After a brief investigation, police determined that he stayed overnight at his friend Jason Carney’s place on the nights of Wed, the 19th and Thur, the 20th. He and Jason had spent a couple of days selling drugs and partying, perhaps explaining why he was so hush-hush with his family about this trip.

Familiar name? Perhaps too familiar.

Jason Carney. Does that name sound familiar? Jason Carney, known to friends as Jay, was one of the last people to see Ashley Ouellette alive, too. He was with her, the night of her murder, at a house party, and was good friends with the Sanborn brothers, who are the main persons of interest in her case.

The last time Tony was seen alive

Tony was last seen at a house party in Biddeford on the night of Friday, May 21st. According to other people at Brandy’s party, Tony and Jay left her apartment on foot around 2am for something drug related (but they told people it was for beer). It wasn’t a secret that Tony was in town to sell. Jay and he had spent the past few days selling drugs around Biddeford, Old Orchard, and Saco, his old stomping grounds.

When Jay returned to the house, Tony wasn’t with him, and Jay was a mess. Brandy, Tony’s ex-girlfriend, noticed that Jay was acting jittery and appeared uncomfortable. His energy was frantic. His pants were rolled up and dripping with mud and water. Why would he be traipsing around in the muddy woods or the nearby Saco River in the middle of the night at a house party?

When she asked Jay where Tony was, he responded with a nonchalant affect. “He left,” Jay said, grabbing himself another beer. “What do you mean he left?” she pressed.

Jay said that they walked to a small nearby grocery store, Jim And Renee’s Market, and that Tony got in to a red pickup truck and left for New Hampshire. She was stunned and had many more questions, but she could see his temper heating up: a warning sign to press no further. For her own safety, she backed off, and let a still-wet Jay drink his beer and stew in his own thoughts.

Jim and Renee’s Market (called in some reports “The Whistle Stop”) was located at 328 South Street in Biddeford, just a short walk from Brandy’s, and if its hours are anything like Jaky’s Market and Deli (the business that now operates from that address), the store would have been long closed by 2am, even on a Saturday.

Investigators were able to pull some additional information out of him, but not much more.

He said that on the night of Saturday, May 21st, 1999, he and Tony were going to meet with people who were unhappy about the quality of drugs they’d sold them earlier that day. He said that a red truck came to pick up Tony and that he was looking for a ride home to his parents’ home, or to North Conway, NH. He said he didn’t know who the driver of the truck was or what happened after that. He went back to the party around 2:30 am.

Police don’t believe Jason’s account

Police couldn’t verify the report of the red pickup. Lt. Gryzb, a former detective on the case, said “We followed up on everything. Nothing materialized. We can put him in the area and try to track some of the steps. But in some of the stories we heard, it was difficult to determine fact from fiction.”

Lt. Brian McDonough, who also worked on the case told the Bangor Daily News that “Investigators have always believed Jason Carney was less than truthful in providing accurate information and details of the events surrounding Angel’s disappearance, and felt he knew of Angel’s demise and of his location.”

Tony’s drug peddling

“Tony was naïve. He didn’t do enough to distinguish between good and bad people. He mingled with everyone.” Narciso said. This wasn’t the first time Tony had made the trek up to the Biddeford area to sell drugs, but it was the first time that his family found out.

Lt. Walter Grzyb, told The Boston Globe of Tony’s drug business, “it wasn’t big by any means. He was the typical guy who got enough to make a little money.”

The last man to see Tony alive passes away

We will never know what else Jay may have known about that night. He died of an overdose in Rhode Island in 2015 at the age of 36.

Family grieves their loss

Mother’s Day now haunts Ramona, and has taken on a whole different meaning. The last time she saw her son was on Mother’s Day, May 9th, 1999. In her letter to the editor she wrote in 2019 she said, “As his mother, I can’t help wondering what Angel would look like at 41 years of age, which he would have been on April 1. A photo of the two of us from that last Mother’s Day visit, Tony with his beautiful smile and arm wrapped around me” still sits in the kitchen to this day.

Every holiday an empty chair is left out in place of where Tony should be sitting. On his birthday, they celebrate him with his favorite foods—flank steak with Spanish sauce, macaroni and cheese, and flan for dessert. Little reminders that make a mother still feel close to a child she can no longer hold. A child whose body is still out there, hidden from the world. A child who deserves a proper burial where the family and friends of Angel Torres can visit and pay tribute to the son, brother, and friend they all miss dearly.

Tony declared legally dead

In 2004 the family had Tony legally declared dead. They aren’t holding out hope that he’s still alive, but they hold onto hope that one day somebody will do the right thing and speak up.

Reward established and increased

To encourage someone to come forward with information, the family established a $10,000 reward for anyone who provides information that leads to either Tony’s body or to a conviction.

To add to that, two childhood friends of Angel’s, Jason Kohn and Abe Chappell, have contributed to the reward, increasing it to $15k. Though Tony is technically considered a missing person’s case, foul play has always been suspected. Jason Kohn admitted he wished that he and Tony had stayed in touch after they went to separate schools in high school, and told the Press Herald “I want to see Ramona get the closure that she needs. I want there to be peace. I want the people to be brought to justice who are responsible. And if that could be achieved by a measly five grand, wouldn’t that be amazing?”

Accompanying this increase in reward was an increase of coverage. Brian McQuarrie of The Boston Globe did a full two-page color spread called “A Family Clings to Hope” on Ramona and Narciso’s almost 20-year struggle and pain in not having the answers.

In it, Lt. Gryzb described the Torres family as “salt of the earth” and said that Tony’s connection with drugs doesn’t diminish the remarkable perseverance of Narciso and Ramona. “He was a great guy who got caught up in doing some things.”

Links

If you’re holding onto any information or think you might know something about the disappearance of Angel “Tony” Torres, I urge you to submit a tip to the Maine State cold case unit.

Connect with Murder, She Told on instagram @MurderSheToldPodcast for more key photos from this episode and more.

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Submit a tip to the Maine State Cold Case Unit

Sources For This Episode

Newspaper Articles

Various articles from Bangor Daily News and Boston Globe, written by Jessica Roeber and Brian MacQuarrie, here.

Online Written Sources

'Teen girl at sleepover found strangled…' (Crime Watch Daily), 4/21/2016

'Maine family hopes for answers on son’s disappearance' (The Boston Globe), 4/23/2016, by Brian MacQuarrie

'Reward for information on Maine man…' (The Portland Press Herald), 5/19/2016, by Matt Byrne

'Maine State Police release new information…' (Bangor Daily News), 5/20/2016

'Seven Thousand Three Hundred Days' (The Portland Press Herald), 5/9/2019, by Ramona and Narciso Torres

'Somebody knows what happened to Angel' (The Portland Press Herald), 5/9/2019, by Eric Russell

Video Sources

'Teen girl at sleepover found strangled…' (Crime Watch Daily), 4/21/2016

Photo Sources

Various, from Bangor Daily News, Boston Globe, and Crime Watch Daily.

Media and Credits

Research, writing, audio, and editing by Kristen Seavey

Murder, She Told was created by Kristen Seavey

This episode was also co-produced by AKA Studio Productions

Writing support by Byron Willis

Editing support by Jaqueline Pena