A mother's prayer to catch a killer

Lizasuain DeJesus hurried down a crowded, narrow block in Hunting Park last night, looking every bit like a mother on a mission.

As a preacher bellowed behind her, DeJesus handed out white balloons to anyone who entered her line of sight and politely smiled at the mention of her daughter, Iriana.

Finally, at 7:50 p.m., she stopped. "OK," she said. "I think we're ready."

As dozens of her friends, relatives and neighbors silently clutched candles on the corner of Fairhill Street near Pike, DeJesus stepped behind a large photo of Iriana and quietly marked the eighth anniversary of the little girl's murder.

A few minutes later, DeJesus counted down and everyone on the block released the balloons into the sky, yelling, "We love you, Iriana!"

Time has marched on, but few people in Hunting Park have forgotten Iriana or her family.

The lurid details of the adorable 5-year-old girl's murder are still fresh in the minds of many — as is the fact that her alleged killer, whom police identified just last year as Alexis Flores, is still on the loose.

"We think about it all the time," said Rosie Adorno, 23, who lives on Fairhill Street. "Nobody gets over something like that."

DeJesus said that the community support inspires her "to keep on going ...until we get justice."

But her thoughts frequently return to her sweet-faced, pigtailed little girl, who was affectionately known as "Nena."

"I look at a lot of 11, 12 and 13-year-old girls and wonder how she would look now, or what she would wear," DeJesus said.

Iriana disappeared on July 29, 2000, prompting a panicked neighborhood-wide search.

She was found partially decomposed in a ramshackle apartment on 6th Street near Pike three days later.

Little Iriana had been raped and strangled and left in a corner facing a wall, her tiny body partially covered by a green trash bag.

The early hunt for her killer focused on a boxcar drifter who arrived in town mysteriously and went only by the name "Carlos."

But last year, homicide detectives announced that DNA evidence had led them to Flores, 25, an undocumented immigrant who was booted back to his home country of Honduras in 2005.

Flores was arrested in Arizona in 2004 on charges of forgery. Arizona law-enforcement officials entered his DNA into a national database, and it matched genetic material taken from the scene of Iriana's grisly murder, police said.

"It was the best news when they told me," DeJesus said. "For years, I'd beaten myself up thinking that it had been someone I knew, or even a friend or family member."

Flores' whereabouts remain unknown. The FBI added him to its "Ten Most Wanted" list and offered a $100,000 reward for information that leads to his capture.

TV's "America's Most Wanted" — which provided free food for DeJesus' friends and relatives last night — continues to feature the case on its show.

Homicide detectives, however, said that they have received few new tips on the case. *