Chilling footage shows illegal migrant who ‘suffocated woman on her 21st birthday’ dragging her limp body out of house
A doorbell camera captured the moment an Ecuadorian man accused of killing a 21-year-old girl carried her limp body out of a Syracuse home.
Jhon Moises Chacaguasay-Ilbis, also 21, is seen walking into the Airbnb apartment at 916 Hawley Avenue with a still-living Joselyn Toaquiza on June 18 at around 4:20 p.m.
Three hours later we see him carrying Toaquiza on his back, her arms and legs limp. It is not clear from the footage if she is still alive, as she is said to be buried in a shallow grave a few feet away in Lincoln Park, across the street.
Toaquiza, who celebrated her birthday on the day of the murder, studied with Chacaguasay-Ilbis in his native Ecuador. Police say he traveled to Syracuse to meet her last week after arriving in the U.S. a year earlier.
He surrendered himself to the FBI at the border, and as of this writing his whereabouts are still unknown. It is also unknown whether he was seeking asylum, as police revealed this week that he had been arrested.
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A doorbell camera captured the moment an Ecuadorian man accused of killing a 21-year-old girl carried her limp body from a Syracuse home
Jhon Moises Chacaguasay-Ilbis (not pictured) is seen walking into the Airbnb at 916 Hawley Avenue on June 18 in the footage, with a still-living Joselyn Toaquiza, seen here
The newly released footage appears to show her and her alleged accuser, who police say strangled her hours before she was killed.
She is then seen draped over the man’s shoulders as he carries her body out of the house and up the driveway.
Syracuse police didn’t find her body until Saturday morning, after which a colleague of Toaquiza told CNY Central on Thursday, “I was just overwhelmed.”
“He’s been caught and it’s all going to come to light,” Jennifer Engel said through tears as police were finally able to locate her lost daughter and cuff her suspected killer.
When asked about the loss, she said emotionally of Toaquiza: “She’s not coming back,” after police revealed the link between the two 21-year-olds.
Police arrested Chacaguasay-Ilbis on Wednesday in Spring Valley, another New York city about 230 miles (370 kilometers) from the suspected crime scene.
He was then transported back to downtown New York. He is set to be arraigned Thursday morning, with police sharing the clip with the public.
The newly released footage appears to show her and her alleged accuser – who police say strangled her – hours before she was killed.
Toaquiza, who celebrated her birthday on the day of the murder, studied with Chacaguasay-Ilbis in his native Ecuador. Police say he traveled to Syracuse to meet her last week after arriving in the U.S. a year earlier
Officers said at the time that the owner of the Airbnb rented to the suspect told officers that blood had been found in the home. However, no further details were provided.
After taking Toaquiza to the driveway, the camera loses track of him, but he later returns and goes outside with a change of clothes, the video shows.
He boarded a waiting Lyft minivan, which police say took him to a local Greyhound station.
He then boarded a bus with a ticket to New York City, turning himself in to police in Spring Valley on Tuesday evening.
The city is located in Rockland County, about 35 miles northwest of New York City, near the New York-New Jersey border.
Police added in their statement that Chacaguasay-Ilbis’ whereabouts remain unknown for the past week, as they were last year.
What is known is that Chacaguasay-Ilbis traveled to the United States last year and surrendered at the border, after which he, like so many others in recent years, was released into the province.
Police said he may have been in the process of applying for asylum, but that also remains unknown.
She is then seen draped over the man’s shoulders as he carries her body out of the house and up the driveway
Syracuse police didn’t find her body until Saturday morning, buried in a shallow grave across the street
he was picked up Wednesday morning by Syracuse police more than 200 miles away and transported back to Central New York, where he was charged Thursday. Several people were seen outside the home last month when the search for the woman began
After being picked up by Syracuse police on Wednesday morning, he was taken back to central New York, where he was arraigned on Thursday morning.
Police further revealed that Toaquiza was also from Chile and emigrated from the province last year with her uncle.
The couple lived together on Syracuse’s North Side, not far from the alleged crime scene.
The surveillance video, they said, came from the owner of the property being used as an Airbnb, who shared the video with the woman’s family and police.
At the time of writing, Chacaguasay-Ilbis is being held without bail at the Onondaga County Justice Center and is scheduled to appear in court again on July 2.
Insiders reportedly employed by Homeland Security told The New York Post that Chacaguasay-Ilbis crossed the U.S. border near El Paso and was released because there was not enough room to hold him.
Last week, three people drowned in the Rio Grande on Tuesday night in far west El Paso, bringing to 102 the number of migrant deaths in federally run racist communities in the city since October.
In 2023, the El Paso and Del Rio sectors of the border saw more border crossings than anywhere else in the 2,000-mile stretch of land.
That year, about 4.2 million pedestrians crossed the border into El Paso from Juárez via the Stanton-Lerdo Bridge and the Paso Del Norte Bridge in downtown, according to data from the National Bureau of Transportation Services.
Downtown bridges have since seen an increase in northbound crossings, though they are still below pre-pandemic numbers.