The search for Alejandra Gutierrez is over, with a not-surprising sad ending. Police Chief Rusty York would say only that "the focus of authorties' interest" has been on someone already in custody, without saying who it was. Speculation has been intensifying in recent days that Simon Rios, already held in connection with the killing of his wife and three children, was involved. It isn't being reported in Fort Wayne yet, but that indeed seems to the case, according to this report in the Muncie Star-Press:
Delaware County Deputy Prosecutor Mark McKinney said investigators were led to the site based on information provided by Simon Rios, a 33-year-old Fort Wayne man arrested Dec. 13 after he allegedly killed his wife and her three daughters in the family's home.
The Rios family lived in the same Fort Wayne neighborhood as the missing girl.
McKinney said Simon Rios was a suspect in the girl's disappearance, along with a second suspect, described only as a juvenile.
There will be endless agonizing about this story by everyone it has touched, however peripherally. What kind of man could be responsible for so much misery? How could such a monster be in our midst without anyone knowing it? Or what if someone did know? Evil of this magnitude is hard to comprehend, and staunch death penalty opponents are going to have a tough time making their case.
This will have been many people's first real introduction to Fort Wayne's Hispanic community. Perhaps it will make all of us more appreciative of all our neighborhoods and the efforts of the people in them to maintain the sometimes fragile connections to the civilizing networks that sustain us.
