Brenda Vazquez was just 11 the last time she saw her mother, Neida Monge, alive — but she still vividly remembers the 28-year-old Bronx woman’s warm embrace before a cold-hearted killer took her life.
“My mom was a loving, giving person. She couldn’t walk into a room without brightening that room. She made life better,” Vazquez said.
One day in 1990, after 28-year-old Neida Monge visited her three children with their grandmother before vanishing from their lives. For the next 34 years, Vazquez and her family have been struggling to find out why their mother was gone. Last year, they finally learned the truth — their mother was at the center of a cold case homicide that Bronx detectives have been unable to solve for as long as they have been without their mother.
Now one NYPD detective is searching for her killer with unbridled determination.
The discovery came earlier this year, not long after Vazquez and her sister uploaded a photo of their mother in March to a Facebook page dedicated to finding missing people in the Big Apple appropriately named “Missing People of NYC.” Through this page, users pointed out that Monge resembled a woman who had been found dead in Claremont Park the same year she went missing.
Known only as the Bronx Jane Doe, the woman was found bloody and bruised in the Bronx greenspace on May 2, she had been strangled to death. Police say she was discovered when children, playing handball, knocked the ball into bushes, where they found her partially clothed.
Cops immediately canvassed the area and but leads soon went cold, in large part due to police being overwhelmed with crimes. According to NYPD data, 1990 saw the most homicides committed in a single year with a staggering 2,245 slayings reported.
Three decades and four years later, with Bronx Jane Doe having been identified investigators say they are not only committed to solving who murdered her but also to bring justice to her family.
“I actually happened to be at the O.C.M.E’s office one day in regards to a totally different case. And [a doctor] came out of her office very excited. She said: ‘Oh my gosh, we just made an identification on one of our cases,’” Detective Rahmaan Wiltshire told amNewYork Metro.
Since then, Wiltshire noted, “I’ve learned additional information in regard to Neida Monge. There’s additional interviews that are coming forward.” He remains steadfast in getting the Monge case solved as soon as possible — not only to bring her killer to justice, but to also provide closure to her family.
“You want to bring some healing to the children,” the detective said.
Police are asking anyone who may have known Monge to come forward, no matter how inconsequential the information may be. Vasquez is pleading for the same, hoping that someone will remember something about her mother that will lead detectives to the killer.
“They have hope, they have hope that something is going to come of this, and I do too,” Detective Wiltshire said.
When Vazquez now 45, looks back at her 11-year-old self, she said she wants the world to know that the murderer not only stole the life of a young woman, but also robbed three children of their mother.
Vazquez also has a message for the killer if he or she is reading this story.
“Why? …This is someone who would give you anything, all you had to do was ask, if she had it, she would have given it to you. You took her, you basically stole her from her children, her mother — who died with the hope that she would get to see her daughter one day,” Vazquez said.
Anyone with any information regarding Monge or her death is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS (for Spanish, dial 888-57-PISTA). You can also submit tips online at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X (formerly Twitter) @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
