MILWAUKEE, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- A man who police have long suspected in the 33-year-old unsolved murder of a teenage girl was arrested and jailed last week after he called a Milwaukee television station to confess to the crime, authorities said.
Jose Ferreira called Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN-TV on Oct. 11 and revealed key details about the murder of 13-year-old Carrie Ann Jopek in March 1982. Shortly after the confession, police took the man in custody.
A seventh-grader at the time, Jopek was killed during a house party that was also attended by Ferreira. Authorities initially focused on him as a potential suspect but were never able to support a murder charge against him -- despite the fact that witnesses told police they saw him standing near the area where Jopek's body was ultimately found.
In his phone call, Ferreira reportedly said he lived across the street from the girl and was with her the night she died. He claimed that she had fallen down some stairs and broke her neck -- and that he had sex with her thinking she was unconscious. When he realized she was dead, he buried her, WISN-TV reported.
Ferreira, 50, who was 17 at the time, told police that he pushed Jopek down the stairs when she became hesitant to kiss him. The teen's body was discovered more than a year later on property near her home, buried beneath a porch.
"She told me she wasn't going to have sex until she got married," Carolyn Touisgnat, Jopek's mother, said. "She was 13 when she told me that. And I believed her. Such a pretty girl.
"Now he's gonna pay for what he did to her ... I've been praying for this day."
"I'm happy. I can rest now. Now I'll be able to sleep at night," Frank Sheehan, Jopek's uncle, told the TV station.
Ferreira, who now faces a second-degree murder charge, appeared in court this week and will almost assuredly remain in jail until trial. A Milwaukee County assistant district attorney said prosecutors will request a high cash bail amount due to concerns that Ferreira may flee.
WISN-TV reported that Ferreira had also confessed to a crisis hotline and an acquaintance, who subsequently contacted police.
