Woman Found Stuffed in Suitcase at Bottom of Canal: 19 Years Later, There’s an Arrest

Wellness

When the body of Rebeca Peña was found stuffed in a suitcase and weighed down at the bottom of a North Miami-Date canal, police immediately suspected her ex-boyfriend, Berkley Calvin Curtis Jr. had killer her. Despite his solid alibi, police held their suspicion for almost two decades.

Curtis was living with a woman, whose child he fathered, who confirmed that he was with her in Georgia at the time Rebeca’s body was found. However, his alibi fell apart in 2014 when that woman admitted to police that Curtis actually left the house for several hours the night Rebeca was killed. Police concluded that Curits had more than enough time to commit the murder and then return home.

Despite this new break in the case, something prevented police from making an arrest. That is, until Monday when Curtis was finally taken into custody and charged with second-degree murder for the 2001 murder of Rebeca Peña, 26. Police are not sharing the new details that led to this arrest.

Miami-Dade detective David Denmark started working on the case in 2016. According to him, “there was new information obtained from the old information. There was a foundation left for us to follow that made it very easy for us.”

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle released a statement in which she said, “each survivor waits for the day that the killer of their loved one is brought to justice.” And for the Peña family, she said, “we believe that day has finally arrived.”

Curtis hired an attorney by Tuesday afternoon, who worked for him shortly after the murder. The attorney, Jeff Feiler, said he needed to get up to date on the case before commenting on specifics.

Years ago, “My guy had an alibi,” he said. “There wasn’t anything connecting him.”

Curtis now lives in Coral Springs. He was transported to Broward County Jail, and he is expected to be transferred to a jail in Miami-Dade soon.

The Murder

At around 2:15 in the morning on April 10, 2001, Rebeca Peña left work. She was working as an extra on the set of “Ali,” a movie about Muhammad Ali starring Will Smith. It was being filmed in Miami’s Brownsville neighborhood. Friends followed Peña all the way to I-95 as she headed home.

She was never seen alive again.

She was reported missing the next day, but it was not until six days later that her body was discovered. Three young men found a floating suitcase on the Biscayne Canal at Northeast 153rd Street below the I-95 overpass. They pulled it out, but then noticed blood and flagged down a police officer.