BIDDEFORD (WGME) -- More than two decades after Angel "Tony" Torres disappeared from the Biddeford area, his parents continue to plead for answers.
“We know someone saw or knows someone that knows, what happened to our son. We know someone murdered him” said Ramona and Narciso Torres. “It has been a very long time and we are asking you to not have to live with the guilt of knowing such a crime. You might even have been as young as he was, 21. Please put yourself in our shoes and imagine the pain this has caused us and our community.”
Saturday, May 21, 2022, will mark the 23rd anniversary of Angel’s disappearance.
Angel was at the end of his junior year of college when he traveled from Massachusetts, where he was living at the time, to Biddeford to visit friends. May 21, 1999 would be the last time he was ever seen.
Ramona and Narciso Torres have spent more than two decades keeping their son’s memory alive.
“We are celebrating our son’s memory by sharing with you who he was. Angel was a son, brother, uncle, cousin, and a friend” said Angel’s parents. “He was also funny, a ladies’ man, an athlete who loved his New York Yankees, loved his family, and was hoping to help young adults. He had hoped to own a sporting goods store in the future. He had a lot of goals, but his life was taken away from him way too young. We ask each one of you to please post this information on your Facebook page or just pass it along on whatever social media you use."
Maine State Police say the night Angel disappeared he was on South Street in Biddeford.
Police say the man Angel was with, Jay Carney, who was their key witness in the case, died in 2015 of a drug overdose.
According to police, Carney died without telling authorities the whole story about what happened that night.
Investigators from the Maine State Police believe foul play was involved.
Another way the Torres family has been keeping Angel’s memory alive is through a scholarship in his name.
Since June 2002, a $500 scholarship has been given out to a graduating senior from Bonny Eagle High School and since 2006 another scholarship from Fryeburg Academy.
Angel’s father worked at Bonny Eagle Middle School with a woman named Wendy Larson, who initiated the idea of starting the Angel “Tony” Torres Scholarship Fund. This is funded by collecting $.05 returnable bottles and cash donors.
The Torres family is grateful to the many people and businesses who have donated either returnable bottles and cans or a monetary contribution to the scholarship fund.
Anyone wishing to donate to the scholarship can send it directly to:
- Norway Savings Bank
- Fryeburg, ME 04037
- Attn: Angel “Tony” Torres Scholarship Fund
There is a $20,000 reward in this case. If anyone has any information that could result in the recovery of Angel’s remains, please contact Maine State Police at (207) 624-7076.