Maria Ramos was a 26-year-old Hispanic woman killed on February 5, 1989. Her body was found in Yonkers, nude, hands bound, and placed on her back in a scene investigators described as staged to be seen but not easily linked to a killer. Initial investigative leads went cold and the case remained unsolved for decades.

Advances in DNA technology later connected Ramos’s killing to two other regional homicides through matching genetic evidence recovered from the victims. A break came after an unrelated drunk-driving arrest when Francisco A. Acevedo Jr. provided a DNA sample tied to a parole procedure; that sample matched the long-preserved evidence from Ramos’s case and the other murders. Acevedo was charged, tried, and a jury convicted him of murder; he was acquitted on related rape counts. In January 2012 a judge imposed consecutive sentences totaling 75 years to life across the three murders.

The conviction resolved who was legally responsible, but the case remained a reminder of how long a family and a community can carry an open wound before science and persistence produce answers. If anyone knew Maria Ramos, her circle, or has information about her life in Yonkers before February 1989, please come forward.