Elda Vazquez, 30, was found dead on Friday, October 2, 2009, in the 500 block of Benninghaus Road in Baltimore, more than a year and a half after she vanished. She died of asphyxiation. The Baltimore Police Department investigated, and the Baltimore Sun's homicide database lists her death as a homicide.
According to the Sun's notes, Vazquez "disappeared in January 2008 and was discovered on this date by a Verizon worker in an underground cable vault."
The date of her death in the database is the date she was found, not necessarily the date she died, and the record does not say how long her body had been there.
Her disappearance had been reported in January 2008. Howard County police said then that foul play was suspected in the case of a Columbia woman, Elda Vazquez, 28, who had been reported missing by a friend. She was last seen at about 10:30 p.m. on January 22, 2008, leaving an Ellicott City restaurant and getting into a taxi. Police believed the driver dropped her off in the 8700 block of Tamar Drive in Columbia. Her roommate said she never came home that night, and her friends and family said they had not heard from her since. Police asked anyone with information to call them at 410-313-3200.
No later reporting could be found that explains how she came to be in Baltimore, who may have been with her after the taxi ride, or whether investigators in Howard County and Baltimore ever named a suspect. The distance between the place she was last seen and the place she was found, and the fact that she was found hidden underground, suggest that someone may have moved her, but that is an inference, not a finding by police. No obituary or memorial page for her could be found.
Benninghaus Road is a residential street, and the cable vault where she was found was a utility space beneath the ground that few people would ever have reason to open. That may explain why she went undiscovered for so long, until a Verizon worker opened it in the fall of 2009.
Baltimore recorded roughly 200 to 280 homicides a year between 2007 and 2014, one of the highest rates of any large American city, and many of those killings were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Elda Vazquez could be found in news archives or public records. More than 17 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who saw her in Ellicott City or Columbia on the night of January 22, 2008, who drove or rode in a taxi with her, or who noticed unusual activity near the 500 block of Benninghaus Road in the months that followed, may hold the missing piece. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call Baltimore Police homicide detectives at 410-396-2100, or leave an anonymous tip with Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland at 1-866-7LOCKUP (1-866-756-2587).
