Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
UPDATE (WMAL) 4/13/18 – Hours after police named Fernando Asturizaga a person of interest in the disappearance and killing of Bethesda resident Alison Thresher in 2000, Asturizaga was found dead in the Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland. He was serving more than 100 years for sexually abusing Thresher’s daughter.
“All indications are that the death was a suicide but the medical examiner will make the final determination,” said a statement from the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
The department’s internal investigative division is investigating along with Maryland State Police.
WASHINGTON (WMAL) 4/12/18 – There’s been a break in a cold case involving the disappearance of a Washington Post employee 18 years ago. Montgomery County Police have named convicted child molester Fernando Asturizaga a person of interest in the disappearance of 45-year-old Bethesda resident Alison Thresher in May of 2000, and the department is appealing to the public for help.
Thresher became suspicious that Asturizaga, who was her daughter’s Spanish teacher at the Friends Community School and also her babysitter, was sexually abusing her then 12-year-old daughter, according to that daughter Hannah. In 2012, Asturizaga was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison for the abuse.
Montgomery County Police Chief Tom Manger said Thresher’s suspicions led her to tell Asturizaga, the school and her husband (who hired Asturizaga to babysit Hannah and her 10-year-old brother Sam) that she didn’t want Asturizaga to have contact with her daughter.
“Soon after she made her suspicions known, my mother disappeared,” Hannah told reporters at a press conference Thursday.
Thresher’s case was classified as a homicide in 2001, but her body has never been found. Manger said they believe Thresher was killed in her apartment, and her body was moved to an unknown location. They also think her car was moved from her apartment complex to Broad Street where it was found abandoned.
A recent forensic analysis of evidence found in Thresher’s apartment at the time has made police believe the suspect or suspects tried to destroy evidence.
“Clearly we don’t have enough to make charges on anybody, and that’s why we’re asking for more information from the public,” Manger said.
Police said Asturizaga has not provided them with any information about the case.
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