Gil Alba has been investigating the Kristine Kupka Case almost from the beginning.
The Kristine Kupka Case, http://www.kristinekupka.com
New York Times: March 17, 2002 |
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Date of Birth - 5/3/70
Date Missing - 10/24/98
Missing from - Brooklyn, New York
L.E.A. - NYPD 70th Pct.
Family Still Searching for Sister, and Justice
By JOSEPH P. FRIED |
Kristine Kupka |
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They are tormented by their loss, and tenacious in seeking the justice they deem due.
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On Oct. 24, 1998, Kristine Kupka, 28, a pregnant honors student at Baruch College in Manhattan, disappeared after leaving her Brooklyn home with one of her former college instructors, the police said. Her family said Ms. Kupka and the instructor had begun a relationship when she was in his science lab, that he was the father of the child she was carrying and that they had argued over his insistence that she have an abortion and her desire to give birth. No charges have been filed in the case. The detective assigned to it, Daniel D'Alessandro of the Police Department's cold-case squad, said last week that the instructor, Darshanand Persaud, was "one of the suspects" in the disappearance, though "the case can go in many directions." He refused to elaborate. In magazine and television interviews during the last three years, Ms. Kupka's sister Kathy and a private investigator for her family, Gil Alba , have said they believe that Kristine was killed and that Mr. Persaud was involved. Mr. Persaud, who is no longer at Baruch, has never commented on the case publicly. Last week he did not return a call taken by a woman at his Brooklyn home, and people answering further calls to the residence hung up when a reporter identified himself. It could not be determined if Mr. Persaud has a lawyer.
"We have enough circumstantial evidence," Mr. Alba , a former city police detective, said last week in explaining the contention that Ms. Kupka had been killed and Mr. Persaud had been involved. But Mr. Alba acknowledged that the evidence was not sufficient for the police to obtain a warrant to search Mr. Persaud's home or a Queens location where Mr. Alba said Ms. Kupka might have been taken. Her family and friends maintain a billboard about the case next to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and operate a Web site, www.kristinekupka.com, that asserts that Mr. Persaud knows what happened to her. Kathy Kupka, 36, said the emotions surrounding her sister's loss remained unbearable. "It's ruined my mom's life," she said. "She just cries every day."
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