Naman Shrestha
As the crime rates against the Latin community in Houston, Texas, increased significantly in the late 1970s, the police department formed a group of bilingual cops who were promoted from patrol officers to the position of detectives all of a sudden in order to regulate the crimes. A&E’s ‘The Chicano Squad’ is a docuseries that focuses on the origin and success of the titular group, which helped crack several cases. One of the cases was the kidnapping of Liliana Reyes in 1987.
Liliana Reyes Was Kidnapped From Her Houston Home in 1987
In October 1987, Sergio and Marina Reyes resided near Jensen Street in Houston, Texas, along with their children, including their 14-month-old daughter, Liliana Reyes. On the night of October 3, a homeless woman from Puebla, Mexico asked the couple if she could stay in for the night as she had nowhere else to go. Given their helpful nature, they welcomed the stranger into their humble abode and fed her, before calling it a night. However, before they headed off to sleep, Sergio found the woman’s presence uncomfortable as he couldn’t find his watch a while after he took it off and put it on the table.
When he was searching for it all around the house, the woman told him that it was in the trash. Feeling suspicious about her, Sergio planned not to sleep that night, but his tiredness got the better of him and he slept for a while. The brief window was enough for the homeless woman to sneak into the couple’s room, take Liliana from her crib, and flee away from the property. The kidnapping case was taken up by two of the core members of the Chicano Squad, Raymond Gonzales and Jose Selvera, who moved heaven and earth to bring back their 14-month-old daughter to them.
Liliana Reyes Was Reunited With Her Family With the Help of the Chicano Squad
As Raymond and Jose delved deeper into the kidnapping case of Liliana Reyes, they learned that the woman’s name was Aajdee Olivia Gill and she was on the move towards the south, possibly back to where she came from — Mexico. Soon, when they somehow managed to get in touch with Aajdee’s mother, the authorities were able to locate the missing child. Next, Raymond and Jose planned to travel to Mexico along with Liliana’s mother, Marina, but lacked funds for the same. In order to get the funds for traveling to Mexico, they reached out to a media outlet that sponsored the trip in exchange for getting exclusive footage of the entire case as it unfolded.
Meanwhile, the kidnapped child’s father, Sergio, decided to stay back home and take care of their other children. The mission to reunite the mother with her daughter was successful as things panned out quite smoothly, thanks to the cooperation of Aajdee’s mother. Upon returning to Houston safely with Liliana wrapped around in her arms, Marina Reyes told UPI, “We are very happy. We give thanks to all Houston for helping me.” She added, “The first thing, we give thanks to God for bringing my baby back.”
They were greeted by Sergio at the airport who was very happy and was at a loss for words. They looked forward to returning home to the rest of their children and returning to normalcy after getting out of such a tense situation. Surprisingly, Marina admitted that she had nothing against the woman who kidnapped her daughter because she believed that Aajdee was sick. She said, “I beg God to help her. Her mother and I are both mothers. And just as I felt pain for the loss of my daughter, the woman’s mother also must feel pain for hers.”
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