‘We never gave up hope.’ Murdered teen’s sister speaks out after cold case arrest

KENNEWICK – The tears for a 13-year-old came as soon as her younger sister stepped to the podium at a Tuesday morning news conference in Pasco.

“She will always be my big sister, but as I grew up …. we never gave up hope that this would come to justice,” Nikki Cook said after the Franklin County sheriff announced the arrest of a suspect in the murder of Anna Pelayo, 13.

She was killed in 1997 when Cook was just 9. While her family never gave up hope, she said Monday’s arrest of Jesse Lee Castillo, 51, felt surreal to a family who waited 27 years for justice.

The Pasco middle -school student was found shot in the head on the side of Taylor Flats Road north of Pasco on Dec. 28, 1997. She was rushed to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland where she died.

While Castillo and Jose Luis Silva were considered persons of interest at the time, it was only recent developments with DNA testing that allowed investigators to directly connect them to the murder, sheriff’s officials said.

“I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, to all those who worked on this case for the past 27 years … and especially to those who helped putting these final pieces together,” said Cook, whose mother and other family sat quietly nearby.

She specifically called out and praised Detective Ramona Ramos, who was the same age her sister would have been today. Ramos kept a picture of Pelayo at her desk while she worked on the case.

“You amaze me,” Cook said. “I can see Anna in you, and I know you took her case to heart.”

Pelayo’s family wasn’t the only one haunted by the case. Franklin County Sheriff Jim Raymond was working as a Pasco police sergeant on a narcotics task force when the call came in.

He had to choke back tears on Tuesday when he started to talk about the case.

Detectives throughout the years have returned to the case in hopes of finding the evidence needed to arrest her killer.

“We take our job very seriously. This was a young girl at that time a small community that was taken from us too early,” Commander Marcus Conner said.

While advancements in DNA allowed detectives to confirm the link to the two suspects, Raymond pointed out that it required leg work to make sure they connected the men to the killing.

Conner said Pelayo’s case had reshaped how area police handle reports of teens acting out.

In the days after the murder, her mother told the Tri-City Herald that Anna had begun associating with gang members and running away from home after the family moved to Pasco from Richland a few months earlier.

She said her daughter had been a good student but felt the need for protection after she was assaulted at Stevens Middle School. School officials confirmed the assault at the time. The sheriff’s office confirmed she was listed as a runaway.

“We really don’t know how many lives Anna saved, because it shifted the mindset of law enforcement to take runaway situations seriously and look for causal factors why you have these changes in behavior,” Conner said.

Conner said it was a huge relief to bring the case to Pelayo’s family after 27 years.

“They have not stopped pushing. We have not stopped investigating this, and we’re finally to that point thanks to the countless detectives that have worked on this over the years and the advancement of technology so we can put everything together and arrest Mr. Castillo for it,” Conner said.