When Lizzbeth Aleman-Popoca, a young mother on the brink of a new beginning, is found murdered just weeks after she vanished, the search for answers unravels a web of her boyfriend’s lies and manipulation.If you or a loved one is experiencing domestic abuse of any kind, you are not alone. You can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233); for TTY: 1-800-787-3224; or text “START” to 88788..For a list of domestic violence resources, click HERE. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-lizzbeth-aleman-popoca/ Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies. Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllcCrime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today's story, the one I have for you, is a powerful, tragic reminder that the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship often comes when a victim is trying to break free. And that sometimes the person closest to you can become your worst enemy. This is the story of Lisbeth Almon-Papoka.
It's Wednesday, July 1st, 2020, and Yanneth Allman's phone rings with a call that she's not expecting. On the other end is her sister's longtime boyfriend, Jonathan. Now, in all the years that she's known him, Jonathan has only ever called her for one thing, like to arrange child care for their daughter, Yanneth's seven-year-old niece. But this isn't one of those calls.
I mean, right off the bat, Jonathan asked her if she knows where her sister Lisbeth is because he says she's fully just like MIA. And she's left their daughter Astrid at their East Haven, Connecticut apartment alone. And again, she's seven. In fact, it was Astrid who alerted him to Lisbeth's absence in the first place.
I guess when she woke up, she realized that mom wasn't there and she called him. That was at like 9.15 in the morning, just as he was kind of wrapping up his shift at UPS. And he said he really didn't think much of it at first. Like he thought maybe Lisbeth just stepped out for a minute. So he kind of was just, you know, assuaged her concerns, you know, finished his shift, headed home as usual.
But when he got there at around 10, there was still no sign of Lisbeth. And her car, a 2007 white Lexus, was gone too. When's the last time anyone saw her? Well, Yanneth talked to her sister the night before via Instagram. And Jonathan says that he was with her in bed and then he left for work. So that was at like 3.15 in the morning. He works that like kind of overnight shift.
So it hasn't been that long that they've gone without talking to her. But Yanneth knows her sister's world revolves around Astrid. Mm-hmm. There isn't a world where she would just leave her alone, especially since Yaneth is always available to babysit. Again, that's what she was kind of expecting the call to be. Right. So Jonathan also says that Astrid isn't the only thing that she left behind.
Her phone is still there. So he's like, I can't even try and call her. But even though her phone is there, along with her car, some other things are gone, like her purse, her passport, some clothes, and apparently $10,000 from their safe. Oh, that kind of sounds like she left on purpose. Yeah. Or at least there's like some clear signs of that.
Yeah. Those are important things.
Yeah. So Yaneth wonders if her sister maybe just needed some space. And so she asked Jonathan like the obvious question. Did you guys have a fight? And he admits like, yeah, we did have this like little argument the night before, but it wasn't serious. We kissed. We made up before bed.
The thing is that Yanneth is pretty sure that's not the full story because Lisbeth and Jonathan have been together for over a decade since they were in high school. And though she was private, Lisbeth had confided in her sister about some issues that they had. And honestly, some issues is an understatement. Their relationship was straight up toxic.
Like, she caught Jonathan cheating multiple times. They had broken up, reconciled more than once. Like... Over and over again, she stayed for their daughter, even though he wasn't exactly a doting father. And things had only gone from bad to worse recently.
So back in May, this is just a couple of months before, Yeneth had planned this cookout and her sister was supposed to come with Astrid, but they didn't end up going. And Lisbeth said that she didn't feel well, but the next time Yeneth saw her, her arm was in a sling and her shoulder was really swollen. And three fingers on her left hand were bruised, like almost purple.
And Lisbeth said that she and Jonathan had gotten into a fight. But Yaneth told our reporter Nina that sometime after that, she noticed this shift in Lisbeth. Like Lisbeth seemed done this time, like done for real. She was looking for a job. She was reconnecting with her love of art by designing stickers and decals, hoping to turn that creative outlet into a business and gain some independence.
And just a couple of days before all of this, on June 29th, Lisbeth even put in a rental application for an apartment in Yeneth's complex, planning to move there as soon as possible without Jonathan. Now, as far as Yeneth could tell, Lisbeth was ready to end things for good this time. And had Jonathan realized that? Yeah, she'd made it clear to him. Okay.
But whether he understood how serious she was, I don't know, right? Like they've done this like back and forth thing before. Right. So as Yanneth's talking to him, she has all of this like history running through her mind. But she's still not panicking. Not yet. The leaving her daughter behind does not make any sense, like, any way you cut it.
But other signs point to her getting away just for a minute. So Jonathan and Yanneth make arrangements for her to watch Astrid so he can go looking for Lisbeth. And, of course, the second they're alone, Yanneth starts doing what we would do. She's, like, asking Astrid questions. I mean, Astrid's seven. She's old enough to know kind of what's going on. So, like, did you hear your parents fighting?
Do you have any idea where your mom went?
Mm-hmm.
And Astrid says that her mom took her to bed in her, Elizabeth's room the night before. And she was there when Astrid fell asleep. But then Astrid said when she wakes up, her mom is just gone. And her side of the bed was already made. But Astrid doesn't remember any arguments. She doesn't remember any strange noises, like nothing woke her up in the night.
And while she doesn't seem frightened, she is acting sort of odd. Like she's looking around Yanneth's apartment with almost this intense focus. And then she tells her aunt that she's going to be living here now. Wait, that Astrid is going to be living there with her aunt? Yeah. And she's like taken aback. Like she doesn't know what it means, but she doesn't even really dwell on it at first.
So a few hours pass. And it's weird because there's just no word even from Jonathan. So Yanneth eventually calls him to check in. And he says he's talked to a couple of Lisbeth's friends. No one knows anything. And then he's like, well, I'm going to go do some laundry now.
Okay. I mean, unless he's like out of underwear, what's the rush?
Even if you are, it's strange because to Yanneth, he doesn't seem at all worried. So Astrid ends up staying the night with Yeneth, almost like the first sign of this self-fulfilling prophecy. And the next day is an even harder one because the next day actually is Lisbeth's birthday. Now, this is when Jonathan finally shows back up, but he's not there to pick up his daughter.
He's dropping off groceries, like a lot of groceries, as if he is planning on Astrid staying with Yeneth for a while. So Yanneth sits him down and presses him for information. And that's when Jonathan starts painting a troubling picture of Lisbeth. He says that she just hasn't been herself lately, that she's been severely depressed.
She's been drinking a lot, smoking weed, even seeing other men, specifically a guy named Jose that they knew from high school. And in fact, Jonathan says that he's trying to track down where Jose lives to see if maybe she's there with him. Because as far as he's concerned, you know, the reason he's like, I'm not worried is he thinks Elizabeth isn't in danger.
She must have just run off with some guy. And Yanneth knows Elizabeth has been struggling, but everything else he's saying doesn't line up with the sister that she knows. Jonathan's making himself out to be almost like the victim here, saying that he doesn't know what he did to deserve this. And he's wondering about how he's going to care for her.
And it's just like, well, it doesn't seem like he's planning on taking care of Astrid. Like, it seems like he's going to leave her there with Yeneth.
Yeah. And the more he talks, the more uneasy Yeneth feels. And that's when she realizes it's time to tell their dad, Albino, what's going on. Now, Lisbeth and Albino aren't super close. You see, Lisbeth and Yaneth grew up in Guerrero, Mexico. And when their parents moved to the U.S. in 2001, the girls actually stayed behind with their grandparents. But their parents split.
Their mom basically kind of bowed out of their lives. And they didn't join Albino in Connecticut until around 2010. That's when Lisbeth was 16. So there was like a lot of formative bonding years that were missed. And rebuilding that relationship had been tough. But at the end of the day, Lisbeth is still his daughter.
So he comes over while Yeneth and Jonathan are still there, still talking this out. And when he hears what's going on and he hears Jonathan's version of events, Albino can't shake the same feeling Yeneth has. Like, none of this makes sense. But there's a new detail now that Jonathan adds. He insists that Lisbeth actually did take her phone with her.
He says not her regular cell phone, but one of those like phones that only works on Wi-Fi. So Albino's like, OK, I need to see this for myself. That night, he makes Jonathan take him back to their apartment and he checks all over inside. But there's like nothing weird, no sign of a struggle, no damage, no strange smells, no clues at all even about where Lisbeth might have gone.
Right.
So the next morning, this is now Friday, July 3rd, Albino drives by their place again just to see if anything has changed. There's still no sign of Lisbeth or her car. And that's when he decides it's time to bring in law enforcement. So he calls Jonathan, who agrees to meet them at Yeneth so they can all go to the East Haven Police Department together. But this is when things get really strange.
So within minutes of that call to Jonathan, at 10.40 a.m., Yanneth's phone buzzes with messages that stop her in her tracks. Okay, so the incoming texts are from a number that Yeneth doesn't recognize with a Florida area code. Again, they're in Connecticut. So the area code is 727. And the person who's sending these texts are claiming to be Lisbeth. But they're written in Spanish.
Now, I wrote out what the rough translations are that I'm going to have you read. Okay.
They say, Hey girl, how are you? Sorry for what I did with Astrid. I'm not going to be able to help Jonathan by myself, please. I'm good, don't worry about me, please. I'll call Jonathan now to tell him how things are. I don't want to talk to anyone for the moment. Give me my space. I just want to put down my thoughts and what I want to do.
So she gets these and does the immediate thing that I would do. She hits the call button and tries to get this person on the phone who's claiming to be Lisbeth. She waits. She waits. The phone rings and it rings and it rings. That timing, it feels so coincidental. Way too coincidental. Yeah, no one is picking up on the other end. And when Jonathan arrives, he's like, oh, guess what I just got?
I got these texts from Lisbeth, too. And he says that she basically told him she wasn't happy with him, that she wanted a fresh start, and that someday after she gets her life together, she's going to come back for Astrid. And while the text might have set off all the, like, sister Spidey senses, Jonathan is just like, well, now we know what happened. Like, nothing more we can do here.
Let's just keep, like, living our lives. Certainly no reason that we need to, like, get the cops involved. Like, right, folks? No, absolutely wrong. Yeah. So her dad and her sister are more convinced than ever that they need to go to the police. And they do get Jonathan back on board with that plan. He just wants to do one thing first.
Like, can I real quick sign over custody of Astrid to Albino and Yaneth? I guess he's worried that going to the police will trigger a report to the Department of Children and Families and he doesn't want them to take Astrid away. So to him, signing over custody seems like the safer option, which like I would say you have experience with stuff like this.
Yeah. Like, can he even do that without the other parent there? Like, he's only one of two people who have custody of Astrid.
The short answer is no. Something like that requires a court order. He says he wants to basically just get like a notarized letter or something, which again, like not how it works. But they do. They go. They do that. And it feels weird to everyone. But they have bigger concerns on their minds that afternoon.
So they do this, then they go to the police, and then they sit down with an East Haven officer who asks Jonathan to walk him through everything. And he gives them the same story. And while there are no new details, there are a couple of interesting takeaways. Even though him and Lisbeth aren't married, he keeps referring to her as his wife.
And he just completely leaves out everything about the text that he supposedly had gotten from her.
Oh, wait, the ones that made him, like, feel so much better. Because nothing's wrong. Nothing's wrong.
Right. Now, luckily, Yeneth's there, too. And she's like, oh, by the way, like, show him the messages that she supposedly sent you. I'll show you the messages she supposedly sent me. So he shows the officer the messages and the officer tries calling the number himself, just like Yeneth did.
He doesn't get an answer, but he leaves a message asking Lisbeth to contact East Haven Police Department when she gets the message.
I'm going to be honest, I don't think Lizbeth's going to get the message.
I don't either. So while the officer waits for that callback, he ticks the basic like missing person boxes, like checks the hospitals, enters her information into their system, enters her car information into their system, into like their state database.
Mm-hmm.
But during the next couple of days, it doesn't sound like much else happens on law enforcement's end. Although I know that a cop does go by Jonathan's to speak with him at least once. Maybe they were thinking that Lisbeth would come back on her own. I don't know. But her family isn't going to just sit around and wait.
They, along with Jonathan, start driving around, looking every place they can think of for her or her car. They check beaches, train stations, motels, everywhere and anywhere they can think of. And all the while, they can't help but notice that Jonathan still doesn't seem very worried. And that only ramps up Yanneth and Albino's suspicions. He was the last person to see her.
If he doesn't know where she is, then who does? Every possible scenario is running through their heads, each one worse than the last at this point.
And were they close with Jonathan before this? Like, is this kind of, I guess I'm trying to figure out, like, is this in line with what they know about him? Like, do they have, like, any sort of context?
I don't know. I don't know if you could call them close. I mean, they weren't all best friends. But, I mean, in the beginning, everyone liked him. He and, you know... hung out because of Lisbeth. Like he seemed respectful, responsible. He was working two jobs. I mean, he had the one at UPS. He had another one at a local Italian eatery.
But Yaneth has seen, or at least she's had exposure to his manipulative side over the years. So I think their like perception of him changed a little bit. Like he would barely help with Astrid. But the minute Lisbeth tried to pull away, he would use her, Astrid, as like a ploy to reel her back in. And even during the, like, good times, Yaneth noticed Lisbeth never seemed truly happy with Jonathan.
There was always, like, a missing spark. But even with everything she knew, including their recent physical fight, Yaneth said that she never imagined that her sister might be in real danger around him. But now that has all changed. So by Sunday, July 5th, Albino and Yeneth decide to conduct their own search. So while Jonathan is at work, they head to St. Andrew Avenue where he and Lisbeth live.
Their duplex is at the end of this dead-end road right next to an elementary school. Now, Lisbeth and Jonathan are on the bottom floor and their landlord lives upstairs. So that's actually where they start. And the landlord tells them that he didn't hear anything unusual that night that she disappeared or in the early morning hours. No commotion, no loud noises.
But he does remember something strange. He says that Lisbeth's white Lexus was parked in the driveway for a while on the morning of July 1st. In fact, his wife had to ask Jonathan to move the car just after 11 a.m. because it was blocking her in. And this was so odd because Jonathan and Elizabeth always parked on the street. They never parked in the driveway.
Well, and I thought he said her car was gone when he got home. Bingo. He did say her car was gone when he got home, which is just more confirmation that they're on the right track. But they need proof, solid proof, like video footage. Now, the landlord doesn't have any.
And as they visit neighbors, they are told again and again that cameras they have don't work or they won't let strangers just look through their video. So just as they're ready to give up, Yaneth tries one last house down the street from Elizabeth's apartment. And this resident agrees to let her check her camera that was working. And that is when they see it.
Lisbeth's so-called missing Lexus going up and down the street twice on July 1st. Once at 5.51 p.m. and once again at 8.22 p.m. And none other than Jonathan is behind the wheel. So the moment Yeneth sees that video, I mean, her blood runs cold. And in that moment, just then, guess who drives by? Jonathan is pulling up onto the street, which is like perfect timing.
And they're not going to play coy. Like they have proof now that he is lying to them. So they walk right over and confront him. And at first, it's like more of the same. Like, oh, she must have run off with some guy. He has no idea where she is. And then he switches it up and he's like, okay, listen. I know she's okay, but I can't tell you what she's doing. She has to be the one to share that.
It's not mine to share. And then he changes it again. And he's like, OK, fine, fine, fine. I'll tell you the truth. Now he claims that Lisbeth went to Mexico. Now, since she's undocumented, he says that her plan was to marry someone to, quote unquote, fix her papers. But thanks to the missing persons report that they filed, now she's stuck at the border.
And the only way he says that they can help her is by retracting that missing persons report and telling police that she's not actually missing.
Hold up. She went to Mexico to marry someone to get her U.S. immigration papers in order? It doesn't make sense. And now she's supposedly stuck in Mexico or the U.S.?
I truly have no—like, I don't know what he's saying. I don't know if he's saying she's in America. I don't know if he's saying that she's in Mexico. I don't know. But he's been lying to everyone about this because— Because he says that he didn't know how to break the news to Albino that his daughter ran off to Mexico. Like, he was just so worried about Albino's feelings.
OK, none of this BS even explains the car, though. Like, if you're going to tell us a story, tell us a whole story, Jonathan. Yeah.
So according to him, she did take her car at first, but then she came back because she'd forgotten something and then she needed to go meet this guy. So he says that he drove her somewhere. And where is her car now? Dude, I don't know. Like, Yanneth wants to, like, explode. Like, it doesn't make sense. And she wants to demand that he, like, sit down and actually tell them everything.
But by now, she's seeing a pattern. Like, if she can stay calm, if she can just let Jonathan talk... Every time he does reveal something new, even if each detail contradicts the last and even if it all feels like lies, like it does feel like we're getting somewhere. So she plays along like, OK, look, you're the only one who can help us find the car. Just tell us where it is.
And he starts naming a dozen different spots. It's in a garage. It's by a beach. It's under a tree. Until finally he levels with them. It is actually parked on the street near his relative's house in nearby New Haven.
As East Haven Captain Joseph Mergo told us, when investigators pull up to this house on Monday, July 6th, they are stunned because right there, a mile from Jonathan and Lisbeth's apartment, is Lisbeth's supposedly missing Lexus. Now, they have a lot of questions for Jonathan's relative, the person whose house this is by.
But this person says Jonathan never mentioned that he was leaving the car there. He just dropped it off a few days ago. And when this guy, his name's Carlos, when he asked Jonathan why, Jonathan claimed that he couldn't fit the Lexus at home because he was already working on a few cars and he didn't have room in the yard for it. But like. Hi. That's a lie. It's a lie.
Police know that's a lie because when they'd been by to speak with him before, there were no other cars in the yard. Now, Carlos may be cooperating, but it's not like he's totally on their team. Because again, like this is his cousin. And guess who Carlos called at some point? While the officers are still on the scene, Jonathan rolls up. Totally.
Totally unannounced to just like help fill in some of the gaps, you know, make sure they have like the right narrative. And Jonathan admits he is the one who drove the Lexus there on Thursday, July 2nd, and that he lied about it being missing. And he claims that he was embarrassed that Lisbeth had left him to go to Mexico to start this new life. So, yeah, he knows that he's lied about the car.
He knows that it looks bad, but he's like, it doesn't really change anything. Not really, because the bottom line, he says, is that she left first. on her own, and she's totally fine. So police tow the Lexus to headquarters and the next day they do an emergency ping on that 727 number, the one that was texting them saying Lisbeth, which, by the way, like so weird, no one's called them back.
And oh, also super weird. It's not a number that is registered to a specific person like a landline or cell phone would be like something where you would go through a provider. No, this is registered to a pinger, which is one of those apps that lets you basically get a free phone number. Hmm.
But like any level of pseudo stealthness ends here because the account is registered to Jonathan with the email address Jonathan Jarrah 2020. His full name is Jonathan Jarrah Akupina, by the way. So like real brilliant here. So they decide it's time to look harder at the last place Lisbeth was known to be, which is the apartment. And Jonathan agrees to let them take a look around.
He even hands over his and Lisbeth's phones along with her laptop. He also goes to the station for another interview. And this time around, he refers to Lisbeth as his ex-wife. Oh, yeah. And he says that he knew she wasn't happy. He knew she wanted to leave him. She'd been struggling with depression, he says, and they've been having problems.
And he admits that he had been unfaithful, but says that she was also seeing other men. And in fact, they had discussed the possibility of having an open relationship at some point. And she mentioned, he says, wanting to visit various guys in Mexico. And he says that their daughter even told him that Lisbeth wanted to marry someone else.
But he swears he never laid a hand on Lisbeth, despite what her family might think. And actually, he claims she was the one who got physical during that fight a few months back, that she hit him, and that's how she hurt her arm and hand.
Mm-hmm. And what does he have to say about that 727 number?
I mean, he's like he's shocked. He's totally stunned. He had no idea like how it's even possible. Maybe someone set it up under his name using an old email address that was his, which like I don't know if they were able to subpoena the records before talking to him. But like old email my ass. It's the year 2020.
Yeah.
Like you're telling me Jonathan Jarrah 2020 was not from 2020. Like, OK, my guy. But it gets even better or like, I mean, honestly, it gets even worse because over the next few days, he keeps denying any connection to that number. Even after police discover that it was last used from an IP address that matches his home Wi-Fi.
OK, so now what?
She's like texting everyone from the bathroom that she's hiding in. Again, he's like, I has no explanation. He just insists it is not him. The only way to break this guy is basically to catch him dead to rights in the lie. So they walk away from that interview to go gather information. They do another search of his house.
They get more cell phone records, including from Pinger, showing that the account with the 727 number was created at 10.38 a.m. on Friday, July 3rd, which is right after, yes, Albina told Jonathan to meet them so they could go report her missing. I was going to say, the text came through at 1040? I know, and exactly two minutes before Yaneth got that first text from Lisbeth.
So Captain Mergo and another investigator sit down with Jonathan that Saturday evening, and they are gravely aware that no one has seen or heard from Lisbeth, the real Lisbeth, by this point, for 10 days. And East Haven PD actually gave us a clip of that interview.
We are giving you an opportunity... to come clean here. And I see how uncomfortable you are because quite frankly, sir, you should be. These texts were not from your wife from somewhere else. These texts originated from within your house. How does your missing wife text you and her sister from the confines of your home when she allegedly went missing several days before that?
And if you can answer that question, then I will let that go.
Now, Jonathan doesn't have an answer to that. And as he goes through everything he remembers about July 1st, his story changes again. He still claims that her white Lexus was gone when he got home at around 10 a.m.
He says that he went inside, looked for Lisbeth, couldn't find her, noticed her passport and purse were missing, and then his daughter pointed out that mommy's phone was still there, so he thought that she might have just gone to the store. But now he's saying he went back outside at this point and lo and behold, Lisbeth's car is just like there.
What do you think happened? I don't understand. I mean, you come, car's missing, 10 minutes you're out, car's there.
What do you think happened? I thought, like I said, we already had this talk with me and her. She was like, oh, you know, I want to try something new. I want to do these new things.
No, no, which is fine because couples go through that all the time. We just are wondering about the car. Where do you think she went? She walked down the street. She decided to just leave the car and walk down the street?
I thought she was around the house. I didn't tell her nothing at that moment. So then I went and checked and she was not there. Then I was like, what am I going to do with the baby? That was my first thought. At this point, she had only walked away from the car. Yeah, I know, but like I said, we already had this talk before. Like I said, she's saying, oh, I'm leaving you.
These days, I'm just going to leave.
Police actually have another ace in the hole. They had pulled surveillance footage from the elementary school right next to Jonathan and Lisbeth's apartment, which gives them a clearer view of their road. And the footage from July 1st shows that when Jonathan got home that morning, he parked on the street right behind Lisbeth's white Lexus. And it was there the entire time.
The only person moving it around was him. And he was doing some more sketchy stuff. So he moved it into the driveway for about an hour and then took it over to the school parking lot later that afternoon. And there... In full view of the camera, he pulled out a can of air freshener and is like spraying it all around the trunk. But even with this video evidence, he still won't come clean.
I'm sorry.
You need to be honest with us right now.
Sir, like I said, nothing happened to Lisbeth.
Then where is she?
I don't know where she is. That's why I'm here for you. That's why you are here trying to help me out.
After that, Jonathan decides that he wants a lawyer. Interview's over. But investigators know that they're on the right track now. Everyone they talk to says Elizabeth would never leave her daughter. And they confirm that she, of course, didn't go to Mexico. There has been no activity on her passport.
So over the next few days, they start piecing together Jonathan's movements through witness interviews, phone records, cell tower data, and surveillance footage from a dozen locations. And they find out that on the night of Tuesday, June 30th, Lisbeth and Jonathan were in an hours-long argument via text. Lisbeth was home while Jonathan was kind of coming and going from the apartment.
And what they learned is that at 9.09, he left to run an errand. He's back by 9.17. But instead of going inside, he like sat in the car while this like text fight continued. And in this, Lisbeth told him it was over, that if he ever saw her and their daughter on the street, like he should walk the other way. She was that done. Mm-hmm.
And she told him that the last 10 years had been like a nightmare for her and she just wanted to forget that he existed. And on his end, he, in these text messages, is mostly begging her not to leave, saying that he wouldn't walk away if he saw them, like Astrid was their baby. All that time, he was still just outside in the car.
And then at 12.50 in the morning, so this is now Wednesday, July 1st, he finally gets out and walks to the house. Now, police can't see him go inside. The school cameras are set in like the rear parking lot facing the street with like trees blocking the house itself. But cell tower data places him in that area for over two hours.
Until he is seen on video leaving their house for his UPS shift at 3.18 a.m.
Based on the video, can they tell if he put anything in the car?
No, no. So because of the camera angle, they can't. But what they're assuming is that he must have gotten Lisbeth in there somehow.
Mm-hmm.
Mostly because of that, like, air freshener. Yeah, in the trunk. Now, when investigators search the Lexus, cadaver dogs do alert on that exact spot in the trunk. So they are sure that Jonathan killed her, placed her in the trunk, disposed of her. But the problem is he's not talking anymore. And they're still missing the most crucial piece of evidence of all, Lisbeth's body.
Mm-hmm.
But as detectives lay out Jonathan's cell tower location points on this map, this clear route starts to emerge. They see that on July 1st, he spent most of the day at home before dropping Astrid off at Yeneth's at around 4 p.m., He takes his own car for that, a blue Chevrolet Cruze.
But when he gets back home, he took Lisbeth's Lexus out for some errands, including a stop at a local Home Depot, where he bought a shovel and a hoe. So part of a murder kit. Got it. Or a disposal kit, at least. Yeah. So later that night, after 10, he drove the Lexus a few miles to the restaurant where he works.
And surveillance footage from surrounding businesses shows him pulling up to the dumpsters in the back corner of the parking lot. Now, the restaurant, this is interesting, was actually closed because the owner was on vacation. So it was like nice and quiet, not a whole lot of traffic. And of course, Jonathan would know that. He works there. He works there, exactly.
Anyways, now once he's in the parking lot, you can't see what he's doing. But he was there for nearly an hour and a half. And he's on camera visiting that exact same spot again a week later. So the problem is by the time police get a search warrant for that area, it's July 15th. We are two weeks to the day out from Lisbeth's disappearance.
Now, the parking lot is partially fenced in, but in the back of it where Jonathan was like skulking around, it butts up against this densely wooded area. So investigators like brace themselves for a full scale search, but they don't actually have to go very far. Right behind the dumpsters, something that catches their eye is this door laying flat on the ground.
When they lift it, they see disturbed dirt beneath. And almost immediately, the cadaver dogs start picking up the scent of decomp. And as they carefully dig, the smell just intensifies. And soon, they uncover this bundle wrapped tightly in a blue fleece blanket held together with clear tape. And it has long black hair sticking out from one end. And they know that they have finally found Lisbeth.
Now, before police even reach Elizabeth's family to notify them of the discovery, Yaneth starts hearing rumors through the media that a body has been found. But she doesn't necessarily know the details, and she is still just like clinging to this hope that it isn't her sister.
And even after her father and stepmom show up later that day with detectives and a priest, like warning her to brace herself for what will likely be bad news, she's still holding on. But the next day, investigators show her photos of the victim's tattoos to help with identification. And that awful realization just like hits her. She is never going to see her sister again.
And the only thing her family can hope for now is some sort of justice. Now, when she is taken for autopsy, the medical examiner determines that Lisbeth died from homicidal asphyxia. And he also finds non-fatal blunt force injuries from what was likely a struggle. She's got a bruise on her upper arm and another on her lower back.
And Jonathan is the only suspect right now, right?
So investigators did consider others like Jose, who really was her old high school friend that she was supposedly dating at some point. But with everything pointing to Jonathan, like, come on. Now, Yanneth expects him to be arrested at any moment. Like, again, come on. But days pass. And then weeks. And it doesn't happen. He is still a free man.
And despite that notarized letter, which, you know, you pointed out like doesn't do much, he still has rights as Astrid's father. So he's able to have supervised visits with her, visits that take place at Albino's house.
So her family has to regularly interact with the person that they're pretty sure killed their sister and their daughter. Well, not even interact, but, like, in their own home. I mean, that's gotta be, like, absolute hell for them.
I feel like it would almost be like you're living in an alternate reality.
Like... This can't be real.
Yes. And the only real solace for Yeneth is the overwhelming local support that she receives. Like she starts working with advocates to raise awareness about her sister's story and about domestic violence as a whole. Now, Jonathan doesn't have any record for abuse against Lisbeth. The fight that they had in May wasn't reported.
He does have a felony conviction for assaulting a police officer, which, like, details are sparse on. But according to a Hartford Current article, that thing happened when he was 18 after crashing into a cop on a motorcycle. We don't know of any other incidents. But this is the thing, just because there aren't things on record doesn't mean that they didn't happen.
Like domestic violence is one of law enforcement's biggest blind spots because many of these incidents never even reach police. And when they do, they rarely get the attention that they deserve.
There was actually this study done by the National Library of Medicine that found that Black women and Latina women like Lisbeth are more likely to encounter neglectful or even hostile responses when they seek help. And for Hispanic victims, there are often extra hurdles like language barriers or fear of deportation if they're undocumented like Lisbeth.
And the longer her homicide investigation drags on without an arrest, the more speculation there is that her case isn't a priority because of her nationality. But Captain Mergo told us that there was a lot happening behind the scenes that investigators can't share publicly.
Like, at the time, they were working with multiple agencies, gathering warrants for more digital data, things like phone records, surveillance footage, and Google searches. Evidence even from the Lexus goes to the FBI lab for testing, including a single blue fiber found in the trunk that ultimately matches the blanket that Lisbeth was wrapped in.
And they did an analysis of the air freshener can, and they found that Jonathan could not be eliminated from being a source of the DNA on it. And they also learned that on the afternoon of July 1st, less than 12 hours after he says he last saw Lisbeth in bed, Jonathan was on Facebook Marketplace trying to trade her car for a pickup truck. Yeah.
And in August, they get a new chilling detail from Astrid herself. She tells her family and later an FBI agent that when she woke up that morning and her mom wasn't in bed, she was searching, like, in the apartment. But for some reason, she couldn't get into her own room because the door was locked. And according to her, like, that wasn't a thing. That had never been locked before.
And then when her dad got home, he didn't even go look for her mom. Instead, he just started cleaning. Like, that was the first thing he did.
Yeah.
So the theory, according to Captain Mergo, is that after Jonathan killed Lisbeth, he likely stashed her body in their daughter's bedroom, locked the door so Astrid wouldn't go in when she woke up, and then later he backed the Lexus into the driveway to load Lisbeth's body into the trunk.
And in fact, they find out that while it was parked there, Jonathan did nearly three dozen web searches on how to fold down the backseat.
I mean, what more do we need here, people? I know. I mean, arrest this guy already.
And listen, it isn't the police. Like, they agree with you. But I guess the state's attorney's office didn't because as detectives share their findings with them, they keep hearing like, you're close, but like, go back, get more, chase down more leads, verify additional details and more. In the time that they kept getting sent back, they worried that Jonathan was going to skip town.
So they actually put him under surveillance. Because, you see, even though he lived in the U.S. since childhood and can legally work here, he was still an Ecuadorian citizen. And at the time, Ecuador had a strict ban on extraditing its citizens to the U.S. So if he made it back there, he would almost be untouchable. But when they...
end up putting eyes on him, they were surprised to find that he wasn't running, like, far from it. He was just going about his life as if nothing had happened. So he thinks he's in the clear. That's what he believed, yeah. The good news is, he is wrong. On Sunday, December 27th, police have Albino set up a meeting with Jonathan at a diner in New Haven.
And Jonathan thinks that he is going to see his daughter at this meeting. But instead, this is when he is finally arrested for the murder of Lisbeth. And for investigators, putting the cuffs on Jonathan feels like a win. And for Lisbeth's family, it is a huge relief. Like no more sharing Astrid with the man who took her mother from Astrid and all of them.
But that relief is short-lived because now they face an entirely new battle, which is the legal system. So Jonathan pleads not guilty and he is sent to jail on a $2 million bond to await trial. But according to community organizer Vanessa Suarez, who has been supporting Lisbeth's family, prosecutors aren't exactly confident taking this to a jury still.
Like, they even consider at some point reducing the charge to voluntary manslaughter because they're worried that they might not be able to make that murder charge stick. Wow. Why? What more do they need? I don't know. An eyewitness, I think. I think they want a confession, something that isn't circumstantial, I guess.
They have camera footage. The fibers. To me, the camera footage is almost better than an eyewitness. You don't have to worry about memories getting misinterpreted from actual footage. Then you have cadaver dogs hitting in the trunk.
And your DNA on the air freshener, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Like you have him lying about her car. You have him pretending to be her over text messages. Like there's so much that's there.
Like what's actually happening? I'm with you. Like, believe me. But from the prosecutor's perspective, like taking it to trial, it's always a risk.
Right.
But this seems like not as much of a risk. So they end up going back and forth with the defense. They're like debating possible deals. Right. But through this whole time, like, Lisbeth's family is firm. They're like, anything less than a murder charge would diminish what happened to Lisbeth. And they're not willing to accept that.
So the long and the short of it is that with delays from COVID and all the negotiations, it is not until February of 2024 that both sides reach an agreement. Facing 60 years in prison, Jonathan pleads guilty to murder. And in exchange, he is sentenced to 25 years with immediate deportation once his time is served. Now, for Elizabeth's family, 25 years is grossly inadequate as a punishment.
They, along with advocates like Vanessa, have been very vocal about the larger issue that her murder brings to light. Vanessa told us, like, too often when women go missing or are found dead, they don't get the urgency or attention that they deserve.
And while there is this huge pressure on victims to report abuse, society needs to step up and create better systems of support for cases of gendered violence. We know how widespread this issue is. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, an estimated 47,000 women and girls worldwide were killed by an intimate partner or family member in 2020 alone.
And that is an average, when you think about it, of one every 11 minutes. So like to put it in perspective, by the time our crime junkies finish this episode, approximately four women and girls will have lost their lives.
That's almost impossible to wrap your head around.
I know. I know. But there are lessons to be learned from every tragedy. And that's actually why Captain Mergo reached out to us, hoping that we would share Lisbeth's story. He believes that it shows how real the dangers of intimate partner violence can be and the lengths that abusers will go to manipulate and to control even after death.
Which is why cases like this have to be taken so seriously from the very beginning.
From the beginning, exactly. I mean, it took an all-hands approach. I mean, Elizabeth's family pushing for answers, diligent police work and technology like digital forensic evidence and surveillance footage, all of it to finally reveal the truth like piece by piece. But not every victim has loved ones that are determined to fight for justice or have the ability to.
Like, not every department is willing or able to go deeper. Too often, these stories end before they ever begin. And no one should have to face abuse alone. Help is available, and we've included resources in our show notes if you or someone you know needs support. And please make sure to take any signs of abuse seriously, no matter how small they might seem.
I mean, it can be so hard to see the full picture, especially when you love someone and you want to believe that things will get better. But if you are in an abusive relationship, the focus should be on your safety and your well-being rather than waiting for or like betting on the abuser to change. Because sometimes the risk is greater than anyone could have ever imagined.
You can visit our website for all of the source material for this episode, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com.
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We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?