In the early spring of 1993, a young woman named Judith Ramona Veloz, who also went by the name Aries Jones, disappeared from the bustling streets of Manhattan. On March 3rd of that year, the 19-year-old was last seen in the area of 30th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. At the time she went missing, Judith, a female of Hispanic descent, stood at five feet four inches and weighed around 110 pounds.
She had brown hair that she had dyed a distinctive bleach blonde or strawberry blonde, and her eyes were a warm hazel. A notable feature was a tattoo on her right thigh depicting a woman leaning against a lamppost. Though she had grown up in the Bronx and had family ties to Valentine Avenue and Jerome Avenue, she was living in Edgewater, New Jersey at the time of her disappearance. It was her habit to work on the west side of Manhattan.
Judith's life in the period leading up to her disappearance was fraught with difficulty. Having left her family home in the Bronx at the tender age of 16, she later gave birth to a daughter when she was 19. Reports indicate she was under the influence of a much older man who had isolated her from her family. This individual reportedly coerced her into sex work in Manhattan. Despite having a child with him, her challenging circumstances did not improve, and she continued to be exploited. She would frequently travel from their home in New Jersey to the area where she was last seen to work. When her family attempted to report her as missing to the New York Police Department, their concerns were not taken seriously, a common issue at the time for missing adults, especially those connected to the sex industry.
Decades have passed since Judith Veloz was last heard from, and her case has remained cold, a lingering wound for her loved ones who have been left without answers. In a surprising development in October 2022, investigators from the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force uploaded Judith's profile to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. This action came seven months after the task force had identified a prime suspect in the Gilgo Beach serial killer case, an architect who worked in Midtown Manhattan not far from where Judith was last seen. The sudden interest in her case has raised questions about a potential connection, though it's unclear if investigators have found a direct link or were simply ensuring her information was in the national database. To date, no suspects or persons of interest have been officially named in her disappearance. The circumstances surrounding what happened to Judith Veloz remain unknown, and her case is still classified as an unsolved endangered missing person case.Last Seen: Mar 3, 1993
