By james art A 55-year-old Miami man has been charged more than eight years after his 8-year-old daughter and her mother disappeared, federal prosecutors said.
Daniela Moreno and her mother, Liliana Moreno, 43, were last seen on May 30, 2016, at or near a Home Depot in Hialeah, Florida, according to an FBI press release seeking information on their whereabouts.
For years, Daniela’s father, Gustavo Alfonso Castano Restrepo, was considered an interesting person as the last person to see them alive. But it wasn’t until Tuesday that federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida unsealed an indictment against him, charging him with kidnapping resulting in death.
Prosecutors did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s questions about what led to the new charge.
According to police documents cited by local television station WPLG in 2016, on May 30, Castano Restrepo asked Liliana Moreno and their daughter to come with him to Home Depot, but he got into an argument with Liliana Moreno while driving. Castano Restrepo told police he pulled over and left the two near a freeway after she scratched his hand.
Castano Restrepo said he drove to his job at a warehouse, but when he returned to pick up Liliana and Daniela, they were not there.
The mother and daughter were not reported missing until Liliana Moreno’s sister could not be reached for days and Daniela was absent from school, Doral police said at the time, according to NBC affiliate WTVJ. Police suspected foul play after checking Moreno’s apartment and found it unoccupied and that Moreno appeared to have left suddenly. A massive search effort was launched and was covered closely by the local media.
Days later, police found Castano Restrepo in a truck parked outside the Home Depot in Hialeah, self-inflicted with a knife, the Miami Herald reported.
He denied involvement in the disappearance of his daughter and Moreno, CBS News reported.
In 2021, investigators tried to bring new attention to the case, which had by then gone cold, although Castano Restrepo remained a subject of interest.
“He’s in the community here in South Florida,” Miami-Dade police Detective Christopher Villano told CBS News at the time. “We dot all our I’s and cross all our T’s and in these cases we don’t want to just make an arrest.”
An attorney listed as representing Castano Restrepo declined to comment to HuffPost on Friday.