For mother of a victim, relief

Lourdes Vasquez had forgiven Miguel Figueroa and moved on with her life, seemingly safe in the knowledge that the man convicted of raping and killing her 13-year-old daughter would serve life in prison.

But, for the last week, she found herself in Superior Court in Camden, listening to the same gruesome evidence once again.

Figueroa won a new trial on appeal, and he served as his own attorney this time, even cross-examining Vasquez after she testified for the prosecution.

"Sitting there, having him ask questions, that was hard," Vasquez said yesterday. "Not that he intimidated me in any way. Just the thought of him talking to me . . . it was uncomfortable."

While Vasquez had to relive the trial, she also got to experience the relief of hearing Figueroa found guilty for a second time.

Jurors took less than two hours to convict him yesterday of four counts of murder and sexual assault. Figueroa's sentencing was scheduled for May, when he again faces life in prison.

"I'm relieved. I don't have to deal with this anymore," Vasquez said. "I can finally put this behind me and move on."

Vasquez's daughter, Shaline Seguinot, went missing on Aug. 4, 1995, after going for a five-minute ride on a borrowed bicycle. Her nude body was found three days later in heavy brush behind the Pyne Poynt Family School in North Camden.

She had been raped, stabbed 10 times and her throat had been slashed "almost ear to ear," prosecutors said.

Figueroa, 36, wasn't arrested until 2000, when he was living in Florida under an assumed name. He was convicted the first time in 2002, and he won a new trial in 2005.

The DNA left in Seguinot's body matched Figueroa with a 1-in-42 trillion certainty, prosecutors said.

Figueroa argued that the person who had sex with Seguinot wasn't necessarily the killer - suggesting that he had consensual sex with her, then somebody else killed her.

It was a script borrowed from the first trial, when Figueroa's attorneys handled the case. In fact, Figueroa seemed to rely heavily on the transcript of his previous trial for his defense. At times, he seemed to be reading verbatim.

"I guess it just goes to show you what a farce it was," said Assistant Camden County Prosecutor Greg Smith, who prosecuted the case. "He had a perfectly good trial the first time with two excellent attorneys. . . . He came back a second time and tried to do what they did. It's ridiculous."

Seguinot's death was one of the city's most notorious cases. It also was the first time that Sister Helen Cole, a North Camden nun, became involved with crime victims' families.

Sister Helen had opened the doors of Guadalupe Family Services in North Camden a month before Seguinot disappeared. She helped with the search for Shaline, and she has been working with victims' families ever since. She sat next to Vasquez yesterday, patting her on the back after the verdicts were read.

"I didn't give it up," Sister Helen said. "I'm still here, 11 years later."

After the verdict, a who's who of Camden County investigators lined up to offer congratulations and hugs to Vasquez.

Around her neck hung a heart-shaped pendant with her daughter's picture - a gift from Sister Helen on the eve of the first trial.

"It hasn't left my sight ever since," Vasquez said.