Diana Moreno-Acevedo, 35, was last seen at her Freehold, New Jersey apartment on the morning of February 20, 2003. An immigrant from Colombia who had been in the United States about three years, she worked as a cleaning woman, called her mother in Colombia daily, and was described as a Hispanic female, 5 feet 3 inches, about 145 pounds, with black hair, brown eyes and a fish tattoo on her right shoulder.

Authorities treating her disappearance as a homicide believe Diana was killed between about 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. that day. Investigators focused on a roommate, identified as Francisca Martinez, after a witness saw a woman throw a plastic trash bag from the apartment window; the bag contained bloodstained clothing and a shirt with three holes resembling stab wounds. Police also found blood in Martinez’s bedroom and elsewhere in the unit, broken pieces of fingernails, and a broken knife handle whose blade was thought to match the holes. A taxi driver said Martinez rode to West New York with two heavy suitcases and returned without them; two men in a black van were seen carrying a rolled blanket or carpet from the building the same morning and a blanket was later missing from the residence. Martinez was arrested on charges of tampering with evidence and hindering apprehension but has not been charged with murder. Diana has never been found.