The Girl in the Barrel: The Murder of Reyna Marroquín

In 1999, a routine renovation of a Long Island home led to one of the most chilling discoveries in American crime history. A contractor, working in the basement of a quiet suburban house in Jericho, New York, stumbled upon a 55-gallon barrel hidden behind a false wall. When he pried it open, the sight inside froze everyone on site — the body of a woman, perfectly preserved, had been inside that barrel for over 30 years.

The woman was soon identified as Reyna Marroquín, a 27-year-old immigrant from El Salvador who had vanished without a trace in 1969. Her body was wrapped in plastic and stuffed into the barrel along with clues that would eventually reveal her killer — a pregnancy test, a small address book, and plastic pellets used in manufacturing.

Investigators traced the barrel’s origin to a company called Melrose Plastics, which operated in the 1960s in New Jersey. One of the company’s executives, Howard Elkins, owned the Long Island home where the barrel was found.

As police began digging into Elkins’ past, a dark story unfolded. Reyna had been working at Melrose Plastics when she began a secret affair with her married boss, Howard Elkins. The affair was kept quiet — Reyna was young, foreign, and hopeful, while Elkins was a wealthy American businessman with a family and reputation to protect.

When Reyna became pregnant, she confided in a close friend, telling her that the baby’s father was Elkins and that he had promised to leave his wife. But the friend recalled that soon afterward, Reyna became frightened. She said that if anything ever happened to her, “Howard will be responsible.”

Not long after that conversation, Reyna vanished. She stopped showing up at work. Her friends tried calling her, but her apartment appeared empty. Police at the time filed a missing person report, but leads quickly went cold.

Three decades later, the gruesome discovery in Elkins’ former home reopened the mystery. Detectives contacted Elkins, who by then was 82 years old and living comfortably in Florida. When they told him they wanted to question him about a possible murder connected to his old property, he refused to cooperate.

The next morning, before police could return, Elkins shot himself in the head in his garage. Inside his car, officers found a note apologizing to his family — but offering no explanation for what he’d done decades earlier.

DNA testing later confirmed what investigators had already suspected: the unborn child found inside the barrel was Elkins’ biological son. The murder had finally been solved — not by witnesses or confessions, but by the quiet persistence of evidence that refused to stay buried.

Forensic experts believe Elkins killed Reyna after she refused to have an abortion and threatened to reveal their affair. He then sealed her body inside the industrial barrel and hid it in his basement, where it remained undisturbed until the house was sold years later.

The case haunted detectives who worked on it — not just because of the brutality of the crime, but because it spoke of power, secrecy, and the cost of silence. Reyna Marroquín came to America in search of a better life. Instead, she found a man who saw her as disposable, someone he could erase when she became inconvenient.

In the end, the barrel that was meant to hide her forever became her voice — and her justice.

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