Somebody Knows What Happened to Angel 'Tony' Torres
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I'm sending my brother money directly to his bank account in India because he's apparently too busy practicing his karaoke to go pick up cash. Thankfully, I can still send money his way. Direct to my bank account.

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This is Murder, She Told, true crime stories from Maine, New England, and small-town USA. I'm your host, Kristen Sevey. You can connect with me and suggest your hometown crime at MurderSheTold.com and follow me on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast. While the story I'm about to tell you stands on its own, if you haven't listened to last week's episode, Somebody Knows Who Murdered Ashley Ouellette, you might want to go back and start with that one first.

There's a potential connection between these two stories, and by listening to Ashley's story, you might get a better sense of who the recurring people in Tony's story are too. 7,300 days. That's how long it's been since our middle son, Angel Antonio Torres, known as Tony, was last seen alive.

This year marks 20 years since he disappeared without a trace. Ramona Torres wrote that in a letter to the editor to the Portland Press Herald in 2019. It was titled 7,300 days. But that was two years ago. Now that number is 7,942 days. And this year, on the 22nd anniversary of his disappearance, May 21st, 2021, that number will be over 8,000 days.

This is the story of the disappearance of Angel Antonio Torres.

It was 1984. Ronald Reagan was elected president. Prince dominated the radio with Purple Rain, and Footloose was a smash hit at the box office. The game 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 1970s and 80s 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.

Times Square was the epicenter of the sex industry, a mecca of peep shows and adult video shops long before the M&M store and the 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 the safest place to raise a family. Ramona and Narciso Torres, two Puerto Rican natives living in New York City, needed a change. They had met and fell in love in New York City and had two children together, 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 do with their small apartment during a time when New York City wasn't even the safest place to live. In 1990 alone, New York City reported a record-breaking 2,245 murders and over 100,000 robberies. The entire state of Maine

30 murders, and 300 robberies. I can confirm that New York City is no longer like that. Maine was safe and offered the family a chance to own a home three times the size of their New York apartment with its own yard. So by 1985, they packed up the tiny New York City apartment and drove the five and a half hours to Denmark, Maine to start a new life.

As a native Mainer who, before the pandemic, lived in New York City for a decade, I can tell you it's definitely a culture shock moving from rural Maine to such a densely populated area. So I can only imagine it's the exact same thing in reverse if you're used to city life. Here's a little inconvenience I noticed. There's barely any takeout in rural Maine.

Everything closes at 5 p.m., or if you're lucky and have a Walmart nearby, that's open till 9. And unless you're near a town center, most things are quite the drive away. In New York City, you have everything you ever want in walking distance, or at most, a short subway ride. And if you're hungry at 3 a.m., you can get a $3 bacon, egg, and cheese from the bodega practically on every corner.

Part of the shock of moving from a city as diverse as New York is the change in demographics. Maine isn't exactly a cultural melting pot. New York has a huge Latino population, and Angel is a pretty common name for a male, easily blending in with the fabric of New York City. But in Maine, Angel sticks out like a sore thumb, especially for a boy, so he started to go by Tony to help ease the transition.

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. 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. Ramona has a classic 90s 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.

Angel's dad said he was, quote, very popular with young ladies, end quote, which rubbed some of the white boys at school the wrong way. Narciso mentioned to the Press Herald that he, quote, remembers some of his classmates bristling at this brown-skinned kid messing with all the white girls, end quote. 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. He lived with his family in the little town of Denmark, Maine, population 1,148, an hour drive northwest on two-lane country roads from the nearest major city.

Angel attended Bonnie 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 Freiburg Academy in 1996, with several offers to colleges across New England. As a high schooler, he would get to know some of the partygoers in the Old Orchard Beach, Saco-Biddeford area.

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

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

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 15-year-old Ashley Ouellette. The rumor mill was churning, and it was all people talked about at parties. It was all people talked about on the news, too, and the case hung over the surrounding area like a dark cloud.

Tony came home for spring break, and I say spring with a bit of irony because March is still a winter month in Maine. And one day, while sitting in the living room watching the evening news...

A story about Ashley came on. Narciso, Angel's father, told Jason Matera of Crimewatch Daily that upon seeing it, Tony turned to him and Ramona 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'd 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 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.

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

Tony returned to school after spring break to finish up his final semester of his junior year, and a couple of months later, in May, actual springtime in Maine, 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 19, 1999. His mother quipped, One day it will 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 Barr, Massachusetts, and their new landline phone service hadn't been set up yet.

There was just one thing that Tony left out of the conversation with his mother. He was in Maine. She had no reason to believe he was anywhere other than Massachusetts. 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, 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 up and visit.

But Beth said that's not what he told her, and that she dropped him off at the bus station in Boston, Maine-bound, on Wednesday the 19th, the day of his parents' anniversary. 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 he was in Maine or come to say hello, but Tony was 21 and he didn't need their permission. Something felt wrong about Beth calling and looking for him and him missing work, so they filed a missing persons 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 night of Wednesday the 19th and Thursday the 20th. He and Jason had spent a couple days selling drugs and partying, perhaps explaining why he was so hush-hush with his family about this trip.

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

Tony was last seen at a house party in Biddeford on the night of Friday, May 21. According to other people at Brandy's party, Tony and Jay left her apartment on foot around 2 a.m. 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 last 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. Tony's ex-girlfriend, Brandy, 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 effect.

"He left," Jay said, grabbing himself another beer. "What do you mean he left?" she pressed. Jay said that they walked to a small grocery store nearby, Jim and Renee's Market, and that Tony got into 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 it's ours or anything like Jakey's Market and Deli, the business that now operates from that address, the store would have been long closed by 2 a.m., 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 people who were unhappy about the quality of drugs they'd sold him 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 or to North Conway, New Hampshire.

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 a.m. None of this explains the wet pants Jay came back with or why Tony would abruptly leave in the middle of the night. One witness allegedly told police that they saw Tony get into the pickup truck of a heavyset male, perhaps with the intentions of going to North Conway, New Hampshire, like Jay had said.

But why would Tony go to North Conway? Police couldn't verify the report of the red pickup. Lieutenant Gris, 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.

Lieutenant 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 that he knew of Angel's demise and of his location." "Tony was naive. 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. Lieutenant Walter Grisb 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. But police 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. Quote, "He would have been somebody we would have re-approached from time to time to see if anything had changed," another detective said. "We think that Jason Carney had more information than what he chose to provide, and yes, that is frustrating." End quote. Frustrating indeed. He was the last known person to see Angel Torres alive.

Coincidence or not, there is an obvious connection between the cases of 15-year-old Ashley Ouellette, who was killed at the beginning of February in 1999, and Angel Torres, who disappeared in May of 1999. That connection is Jason Carney. Jason was at a house party with Ashley the night of her murder, and his circle of friends included the Sanborns, the family whose house was the last place Ashley was seen alive.

Tony said he'd even hung out with Ashley before at parties in the past. And when Jason Matera of Crime Watch Daily confronted Stephen Sanborn about his activities the night of Ashley's murder, he mentioned Tony Torres, and he called him a friend.

Was Tony silenced so a killer could continue to walk free? Another frustrating similarity between the two is the lack of cooperative witnesses. In some cases, the people who have been interviewed cooperated initially but then refused to help any further. The Torres family believes that fear might be a motivation for the lack of cooperation,

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 said, quote, End quote.

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." Ramona and Narciso and their now-grown sons, who have families of their own, have tirelessly advocated for Angel since 1999. From her letter to the editor, "Anyone who has information about our son is likely a parent by now.

and can relate to the unimaginable prospect of losing a child in this way. If you have any information about Tony, please, please do the right thing and come forward. As long as you keep your silence, whoever killed Tony continues to control you through the information you're withholding. It must be a very heavy burden for you, and it's information that could bring an end to the constant pain we experience as parents in not knowing.

We can't ask you enough to do the right thing. We continue to hope that someday our son's remains will be found and brought to us so that we can give him a proper burial, just as you or your family would do for your child."

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 Cohn and Abe Chappelle, have contributed to the reward, increasing it to $15,000.

Though Tony is technically considered a missing persons case, foul play has always been suspected. Jason Cohn 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, quote,

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? End quote.

Accompanying this increase in reward was an increase in 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. Grisb 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. Quote,

He was a great guy who got caught up in doing some things. End quote. In 2004, the family had Tony legally declared dead. They aren't holding out hope that he's still alive, but they do hold on to hope that one day, somebody will do the right thing and speak up. It's hard to sleep at night when you don't have the answers.

Ramona asked in her letter, was Tony involved in a drug deal gone wrong? Was he the victim of a hate or racially motivated crime? Was he simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? Until somebody who knows something comes forward, we may never know. This is a case that I feel is vastly underserved by the media. On a more personal note, I

I wanted to bring more awareness to Tony's disappearance and Ramona and Narciso's story. All of the cases I work on, especially the ones that haven't gotten justice, have a piece of my heart, this one in particular. Something I noticed is that Ashley's case has been covered on crime podcasts before, and Tony, whose name might be mentioned because of the connection between the two, is only a blip on the end of her story. He doesn't have his own episode.

The Torres family deserves to be more than a footnote in somebody else's tragic story. Maybe the answer lies in both cases. Maybe if one is solved, so will the other. Both families deserve that. But if somebody deserves more media coverage for the more than 20 years they've spent begging the public for help, it's Ramona and Narciso.

If Murder, She Told ever grows into something bigger, part of my goal will be to give back to the families whose loved ones' stories I'm telling. I would love to eventually be able to contribute to reward funds. Like Jason Cohn, the childhood friend of Tony who contributed to his reward fund said, if $5,000 is the difference between silence and somebody speaking, then it's worth it. And if I can help with that in the future, I will.

But in the meantime, share this story. Spread the word about Tony Torres so the family can get one step closer to closure. Every episode has an accompanying blog with all links for sources and contact info for tips, as well as photos that is easy to share and can be found in the show notes and on MurderSheTold.com. Keep his name alive.

Anyone with information about the disappearance of Angel Toni Torres is asked to please call the Maine State Police at 207-657-5710. 7,942 days, or 22 years, is a long time to hold in a secret. You never know who might be ready to talk. ♪

I want to thank you so much for listening. I am so grateful that you chose to tune in and I couldn't be here without you. You can follow Murder, She Told on Instagram at Murder, She Told Podcast for key photos from this episode and more. My sources for this episode include articles from the Press Herald, the Bangor Daily News, and Crime Watch Daily. All links for sources and media can be found in the episode link in the show notes and on Murder, She Told.com.

If you haven't already joined the Murder, She Told secret Facebook group, you can join right now by signing up for the newsletter on MurderSheTold.com. If you're a friend or a family member of the victims or anyone connected to this story, you are more than welcome to reach out to me at MurderSheToldPod at gmail.com. If you have a story that needs to be told or would like to suggest one, I would love to hear from you.

My only hope is that I've honored your stories in keeping the names of your family and friends alive. Murder, She Told will be back next week with another crime story from Maine. Thank you for listening.