Follow
The Maryland man sentenced to life in prison investigated in the murder of his victim’s mother.
The Maryland authorities recently announced that 51-year-old Fernando Asturizaga, sentenced to more than a century in jail for raping his 10-year-old Spanish student, is now a person of interest in the disappearance and slaying of the girl’s mother in 2000. New DNA analysis revealed that the Maryland man attempted to destroy evidence of the woman’s death.
Maryland Man Was Involved with the Victim for Over a Year
Back in 2010, Fernando Asturizaga, then 33, was taken into custody and charged with sexual assault. According to the court documents, between 1999 and 2001, Asturizaga, who was a Spanish teacher, became romantically involved with Hannah Thresher, his 10-year-old student.
Their sickening relationship came to light after the girl reached the authorities and blew the whistle on Asturizaga. Following his trial, the man was sentenced to spend the next century behind bars for engaging in unlawful sexual relations with a minor.
Still, Hannah’s ordeal was only part of her tragedy. In May 2000, Alison Thresher, Hannah’s 45-year-old mother would vanish without a trail.
According to the authorities, Alison’s sister filed a missing person’s report with the Montgomery Police Department after the woman failed to show up for work. The investigator would spend the next eight months searching for the missing woman but to no avail.
The Maryland man was arrested in 2010 and sentence in 2012. After more than six years, the authorities have decided to reopen the case and, in doing so, named Asturizaga, a person of interest in Thresher’s disappearance and murder.
According to a Montgomery Police spokesperson, new DNA techniques were employed to analyze clues found in Thresher’s apartment. The analysis confirmed that the woman was killed there and that the perpetrator, possibly Asturizaga, attempted to destroy the evidence.
The evidence seemed to favor this lead, as the woman’s recently-discovered journals reveal that she was aware, to some degree, that her daughter and the Maryland man might be romantically involved.
Image source: Flickr
