Police: Father, daughter reconnect after her 1999 kidnapping
Police said the case went cold until it was reopened in 2023 by Detective Kealyn Nivakoff.
New Haven authorities have reconnected a father with his daughter who was abducted more than a quarter of a century ago.
In 1999, 2-year-old Andrea Michelle Reyes was taken by her mother to Mexico, police said.
Photos shared by the New Haven police with News 12 show Reyes smiling, laughing and playing with her father, Carlos Reyes-Couvertier, before her disappearance.
Reyes-Couvertier said he went to Mexico multiple times to try to find her but ultimately came up empty.
Police said the case went cold until it was reopened in 2023 by Detective Kealyn Nivakoff.
“There’s not just one piece of key evidence,” Nivakoff said. “There’s a multitude of things in an investigation that bring you to the endpoint, and that was search warrants, social media. We took statements and ultimately the cherry on top was Othram facilitating DNA testing, which confirmed who Andrea was.”
The investigation and social media allowed Reyes and her father to reconnect over the phone for the first time in 26 years.
Reyes-Couvertier, a schoolteacher in New Haven, has been caring for students all these years while missing his own.
The arrest warrant for Reyes’ mother, who is believed to be still living in Mexico, is still active, police said, but it’s only valid in the U.S.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is helping Reyes and her father reunite in person.
