The Murder of Haley Anderson

The Binghamton area Broome County has 200000 people, and we have our share of major crimes and five or six homicides a year. I've represented many families at the DA's office of victims of crime, and I promised them that I would work as hard as I could to do everything that I could to get Justice, who was Haley Anderson How would you describe her?

Haley, as you know, is a typical college student. Everyone needs to try on my glasses. By everybody's account, she is a very sweet, fun, and energetic person. I mostly remember her for her presence. Look who I found. She was always the one who was the most sensitive and supportive friend. As a mother, I know what it's like to have your child go off to college. Yeah, I mean, it was sad, and we dropped her off, and obviously, you know, I cried in college. You go through so many different changes; you're away from your family; you're learning who you are as an adult; and you make mistakes. A guy that you meet in a class could be so different outside. Tell me about Orlando. Orlando is charismatic and knows just how to push your buttons in the right playful way to get you to laugh and have fun with him. He definitely liked Haley; I'd say they were a good match just because they were both very good at having fun and kind of living the life of the party. They were both very good at being social and having friends. They were both compassionate and understanding people. Haley and her roommates were spending some time together drinking a little wine playing some board games and just kind of enjoying an evening stayed up pretty late and when you woke up the next morning did you look for Haley yeah I texted her that morning she didn't answer I figured she was still asleep she loved sleeping nobody really saw or heard from her the entire day there were several attempts to contact her by phone and she didn't return those calls which they thought was peculiar but it really didn't seem to be an issue we weren't super worried at that point because you know Haley's a big girl we don't need to keep tabs on her she had told me that she was gonna come watch me read poetry at poetry night that Thursday and then she didn't show up and we were all calling her and she didn't answer it was the next morning we just were like this doesn't make sense When did you find out that both Haley and Orlando were missing? On Friday, um, March 9th, the first thing I thought was maybe they had eloped. The police received two calls within the hour, and the first was from Orlando to Cerro's sister, who asked them to go check on Orlando's welfare. A patrol officer came here at that point in time, but there was no answer at the door, and the vehicle that we believed him to be operating was not present. One of my roommates was just like, "I've located her phone on Find My Friends, and it says it's at Orlando's house." Why did you decide to climb in the window because we were knocking on all the doors and no one was answering? Did you fear what you could find when you went into the apartment? I was definitely afraid of what I would find. When Binghamton University student Haley Anderson first disappeared from her off-campus apartment, her close friend and roommate Jose Artan says she wasn't that alarmed. When I first didn't hear from her, I didn't think, "Oh, something terrible has happened." It was early March 2018, and back in Haley's hometown of Westbury, New York, her mother, Karen Anderson, didn't even know her 22-year-old daughter was missing. I didn't talk to her every day because she was like, "Mo, can you call me every Sunday?" I said okay. Haley was always fiercely independent, says Karen. "Oh, she's such a free spirit. She was a millennial hippie. The way she dressed, her hair, her personality, the way she was with her friends—she trusted everybody. She talked to everybody." As a student at Binghamton University, when Haley was accepted into their nursing programme, it meant an extra year of school, but she didn't mind. In March 2018, graduation was just around the corner, and so was a nursing job back home. Karen was about to have her daughter close again. She had worked so hard and done so well, and I was going to give her a big party. She made up this really long list of everyone that she was going to invite. She's always wanted to be a nurse. Kevin Ocampo, also a Binghamton student at the time, was Haley's on-again, off-again boyfriend. Did you love her? Yes. Did you think that you might end up together? Definitely. But Haley made it clear that first she needed to graduate and experience some real freedom. She always wanted to move to California, get a hippie van, be out on the road kind of, freelance, and work as a nurse. While still in school, Haley wanted to be free to date others. Orlando Tesero was born in Miami and grew up in Nicaragua. A good student from a well-to-do family, he was also in the nursing programme. His dad was a physician, and I believe that Orlando got the drive to be a nurse through his father's career. Jesse, a nursing student himself, was one of Orlando's roommates and best friends. He liked to work hard in school during the weekdays. On the weekends, he'd like to go out, have a few drinks, meet up with some friends, and always like to dance. He's kind of similar to Haley in that sense. Haley and Kevin in Orlando first met in class but didn't forge a friendship until Haley's fourth year at school, when they crossed paths at a party at Kevin's off-campus apartment. It was just a coincidence that they met in my apartment. Haley recognised Kevin, and so she introduced me to him. Orlando Haley and Kevin grew closer. Kevin even invited his new friend to join his fraternity. We tried to recruit people who we thought we would get along with well, and being that we are both from Hispanic backgrounds, me and him were the only two people that spoke Spanish, so I thought it'd be a good idea. For a while, until Kevin and Haley took one of their breaks in Orlando, his friendship with Haley crossed the line. They had some romantic times together, but Haley was very clear from the beginning that she didn't want to be in a committed relationship. Haley and Orlando now had their own on-again, off-again relationship. Sometimes they were bickering, sometimes they were laughing hysterically, and I could hear from my room when she would stay over. Other times they kept their distances and wouldn't see each other for a little bit, but as everyone told us, Haley never completely turned her back on Orlando, especially after his fraternity brothers pushed him out for sleeping with her because she was Kevin's girlfriend. I think Haley felt guilty for that. Did he make her feel guilty? Yes, I found out. Yes, he made her feel guilty. Orlando would say, "Oh, I want to kill myself. Josie says Orlando started coming around uninvited he used to stop by a lot to come like smoke a cigarette on our porch he definitely used to drive by and how would Haley react when he showed up Halo usually I would deal with it for her you did yeah because it's hard for her to be like to her friend you need to leave like this is not appropriate so there were nights where I would have to go out and be like Orlando you need to leave you can't just show up at our house why do you think you did that because he was jealous he just didn't want to see someone else over there you think Orlando was obsessed with Haley um yeah for sure he was clearly weirdly possessive of Haley who wasn't his girlfriend he definitely liked Haley he definitely seemed like he wanted it to be a little bit more than just an on and off uh fling then there was this big red flags every single one Haley posted this Snapchat video announcing the tyres on her card had been slashed. Her childhood friend, Sydney Matuszak, was a few hundred miles away when she saw the post and saved it. I was just like, "What just happened?" Why would anyone do that? How crazy do you have to be to slash someone's tyres? It happened the day after a party at Orlando's apartment, where he learned that Haley and Kevin were on again. I was the one who found her tyre slashed. Kevin had spent the night at Haley's. When we woke up, she walked me out of the door, and this time when I was walking past her car, I noticed that something looked off about it. Every single one I told you right away said it must be Orlando. Orlando denied it and even tried to blame Kevin, but Karen Anderson didn't buy it, so you're pretty convinced that it was Orlando who slashed her tyres. Oh, absolutely. I said to Haley, "You need to make a police report." So the police came over and took the information down, but she wouldn't press charges because it was over $600 in damage and it would be considered a felony. He would have been kicked out of nursing school for a while. Haley kept her distance from Orlando, but despite warnings from her family and friends, she eventually led him back into her life. It was a red flag for you, but not necessarily for Haley. She trusted him nearly six months after her tyres were slashed. Hayley went missing even after she left Snapchat. Josie and another roommate named Michelle tracked Haley's iPhone to Orlando's apartment and then climbed through a window in search of their friend. I boosted Michelle up first and then climbed in, and she was a little ways ahead of me, and basically she screamed and yelled to me like Josie called 9-1-1.

I walk in there, and then I see Orlando's bedroom, and Haley is there. I didn't know for sure that she was dead at the time; she just looked so pale. You know, Haley had been strangled to death in Orlando, and she was nowhere to be found on the afternoon of March 9, 2018. Karen Anderson noticed two men in a black car parked outside her house. They got out of the car and they walked up to the door and they stood me down at the table and they said Bailey's name, and then they said suspicious activity, and so I was like, "Ah, it just kept staring at him and it wasn't processing," and I said, "What do you mean?" And then they told me her daughter, Haley, had been found strangled to death in Orlando's bed. I was just numb. I felt angry that I didn't push for them to be arrested for that tyre slashing, and then I didn't raise more red flags for Haley with that slash, every single one. Binghamton police Lieutenant Corey Miner led the search for Haley's suspected killer. So this is a house that Orlando lived in. That is correct. There are several different cameras in the house. Those cameras were used to track not only Miss Anderson's movements around the property but also Mr. Tercero throughout the days of March 8th and March 9th. The first recording of interest to the police was on Thursday, March 8th, in the early morning hours, when Haley met up with Orlando. The camera on the front of the house shows Miss Anderson and Mr. Tercero walking into the residence. Mr. Tercero, on the other hand, is seen leaving the residence several times. Nearly seven hours after arriving with Haley Orlando, he is seen clearing the driveway of garbage and leaving alone, using a receipt they found in his apartment. Police tracked his movements to a local pharmacy, where he purchased ZzzQuil and melatonin, two sleeping aids. Orlando then returned to his apartment, where security cameras didn't pick him up for another seven hours, but when they did, he didn't go very far, says Broome County district attorney Stephen Cornwell. "You could see he was walking in the direction of where the basement is." Investigators believe Orlando tried to hang himself in his apartment using hooks that were stored in the basement, but in his failed attempt, they believe he fell and hurt himself. You can see some blood on the floor, and you can see a tie hanging from a doorway. Detectives also found a note written in Spanish that begins, "Lamento mucho esto; I'm really sorry about this. I never felt I could be capable of doing this." He also wrote, "Father, I'll see you soon." His father had passed five years earlier. Investigators thought it was like a killer's confession and suicide note, but 16 hours before Haley's body was discovered, Orlando left his apartment one last time with his luggage and drove over three hours to New York's JFK airport with his head bandaged, possibly from that alleged suicide attempt. Orlando boarded a plane and headed home to Nicaragua.

When I learned he was in Nicaragua before we could get to him, the first thing I thought was that there was no way he got away with murder. It was now up to Nicaraguan authorities to capture a fugitive with dual citizenship. I don't know what our relationships are with Nicaragua, but if he fled there and we don't have a way to get him back because he has dual citizenship, this is not going to be good food. The Idahos team travelled to Manawa, Nicaragua, with the help of risk advisor Nick Copeland and Nicaraguan journalist Alfonso Flores to betray Orlando's steps, starting with where he landed and who picked them up at the airport in Nicaragua. To this day, I don't know if 48 Hours has learned that it was his mother who picked Orlando up at Manawa's International Airport and drove him about three hours north to their hometown of Chinandega, so, uh, today we'll be leaving from Managuaguaguagua, mindful of the political unrest and animus towards the media in the countryside. I'd advise the Iris team to just be cautious for several days. Orlando allegedly hid out in this small town in the house where he grew up, across the street from the church his family once attended. Beckham Binghamton Steve Cornwell wasn't sure the Nicaraguan authorities were even looking for Tercero. We had no communication with anybody in the government of Nicaragua at that point for those few days, and then for four days after his arrival, Orlando's mother drove him an hour south to the much larger city of Leon to get medical attention, according to the police report. Orlando Descero was brought to this hospital with self-inflicted wounds, implying he tried to take his own life. It's possible that someone here recognised a fugitive. The story had been in the news for days, saying that this is where police finally found and arrested Orlando. The next day in Manawa, police held a press conference informing the world that Orlando Tercero was in custody and put him on display for all to see. Orlando Tercero—we knew he was there, so you know, my thought was, "What do I do now? Where do we go from here now that we are in custody?" Orlando had yet to be charged with a crime by Nicaraguan authorities. An international fight for justice had only just begun. Do you think Nicaragua will extradite Orlando to the United States? Less than a week after Orlando's terrorist arrest, Haley's family and friends gathered in her hometown of New York to lay her to rest. After that, it was just a blur. You know, I just can't even—I don't mean the funeral. I can't even remember who was there. Just two months later, another heartbreaking day occurred, the one on which Haley would have graduated from Binghamton University, fulfilling her dream of becoming a nurse. It was probably the saddest day. Just walk in, and there's a picture of her on a chair. Karen's ex-husband, Gordon Anderson, accepted his daughter's diploma in her honour, accepting it on behalf of Haley Anderson. I guess the reason why I wanted to do that is because I couldn't see her walk up and get it; maybe by me going up, I would feel a part of her in me as Ashley was struggling to come to terms with their new reality. The fight to extradite Orlando to the U.S. was in high gear, and the iron stain was that he was going to be extradited back to us. Broome County District Attorney Steve Cornwell immediately took steps to secure a second-degree murder indictment against him. I told the family I was optimistic you wanted him to be extradited face-to-face because I wanted authorities here, yes, and I wanted to see him. I wanted to be face-to-face with him, but it wouldn't be that simple. Remember, Orlando had dual citizenship in the U.S. and Nicaragua, and an existing treaty does not require either country to extradite one of its own. The effort would stretch on for a year and a half until September 2019, when Steve Cornwell says he got a call from the Department of Justice. I said, "All right, well, what's the bad news? They're not going to extradite him. What's the good news? They're willing to try them in Nicaragua. I thought we had a snowball's chance in hell of getting a conviction in Nicaragua. In the U.S., a grand jury had charged Orlando with murder in the second degree; he would be charged with committing a crime that doesn't even exist here. Feminicide is defined specifically as the murder of a woman with whom the perpetrator had a relationship. Daniel you are Orlando's best friend while in Nicaragua we spoke with a group of Orlando's closest friends Daniel do you think you're best friend was capable of killing someone no they say Orlando was an excellent student he had the best prospects of our whole High School class how would you describe Orlando as a friend and he was kind he always was kind he's someone that if you're ever feeling down he finds a way to get the biggest smile out of you he was so caring so respectful they simply can't believe the Orlando they know could have killed Haley was he in love with her I I think he was do you think he was obsessed with her no did he ever tell you that she rejected him no no never tell me that unlike here in the U.S Orlando was not required to enter a plea. Steve Cornwell was starting to get nervous. I was concerned: are we going to get a trial or is it going to be a show trial? Then, with a glimmer of hope, Cornwell, in his office, was asked to assist the Nicaraguan prosecution team.

We had eight days to prepare for the trial—all right, eight days—and probably the biggest part was to set up a way to communicate. How did that happen? The Nicaraguan authorities agreed that we could use teleconferencing, and the entire trial would be conducted through teleconferencing. Witnesses would testify from the Broome County DA's office to a courtroom in Managua, thousands of miles away, where a judge, not a jury, would decide Orlando's fate. On October 1st, 2019, the trial began with Haley's mother, Karen, as the prosecution's first witness. The woman sitting to the left is there to help. Translate: yes, see that he would not stop texting her, following her, and driving by her house, as Karen testified when she got her first glimpse of Orlando on the screen. What did you think when you saw him? What did you feel when you saw him? I felt sad that he ruined so many people's lives, and then as the trial went on, I kept becoming much more and more angry because he acted very arrogant, almost as if he were there and he was bored. Haley's roommate, Josie Orton, also testified that Orlando has always been possessive over Haley, as I was, as well as Orlando's roommate, Jessie Bua. They had an on-and-off relationship for a little over a year. Kevin Ocampo, Haley's ex-boyfriend, also took the stand, telling the judge about the time Haley's tyres were slashed. At the time, I thought it was because I was seeing Haley again, yes, but it was Binghamton police investigator Carl Peters who methodically took the judge through all the evidence. I viewed the video that was secured from 23 Oak Street, including all the seemingly damning surveillance footage. I saw it about four o'clock, with a male and a female walking to the apartment later on, as what is clearly Orlando to Cheryl comes and goes from the doors of the apartment, and then there was that handwritten note left behind in Orlando's apartment. In the note, it's written that he did something stupid and is sorry. The motive was likely jealousy. I do. The judge also heard from Dr. James Turzian, the pathologist who conducted Haley's autopsy with marks on her neck and determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation by net compression. For District Attorney Steve Cornwell, the evidence was overwhelming. He choked her to death. He took Haley, who I believe may have been sleeping, and choked the life out of her and left her there to rot. That is sick. A disturbed man could take advantage of somebody he claimed to love and kill her because he couldn't have her, but Orlando's attorney had yet to present his case and was about to argue that Orlando was temporarily insane at the time of the crime. I felt that maybe he was going to get off. The only thing I was worried a little bit about was the insanity play. Orlando's defence attorney, Eduardo Ruby, argued that due to the influence of alcohol, Orlando was temporarily insane at the time of Haley Anderson's murder, and in an effort to prove it, he called a psychiatrist as his first and only witness. Dr. Ronald Lopez Aguilar, who was appointed by the court, testified that Orlando told him he had no recollection of what happened, claiming he woke up after a night of heavy drinking to find Haley dead, but the expert couldn't verify whether any of that was true and said there's no way to tell what Orlando's state of mind was at the time of the murder; instead, he could only say there was nothing wrong with the defendant's current mental state. It's indefensible. It was an indefensible case. I would say there is absolutely no possibility that he doesn't remember what happened; there's no evidence that he was drunk around drugs; there's no evidence that he had some sleepwalking disorder; and, uh, you know, he committed murder in his sleep after both sites rested. Fabiola did something that would never happen in the U.S. before a verdict: she gave Haley's family the last word. Haley was a beautiful, intelligent, and friendly girl. She was an aspiring nurse and had her whole life to look forward to. She was and still is my best friend. So thank you for listening and letting me speak on behalf of my daughter. Then it was over. Cornwell expected at least a day of deliberation. Instead, the judge shocked him by saying she would return with her verdict after a brief recess. It was a surprise. That's not the way our system works here. A judge will normally say, "Okay, thank you. I'm going to, you know, deliberate on my own and write a decision." After a tense 90 minutes, the judge returned with a bold statement denouncing violence against women and advocating for equal rights. She said Orlando disposed of Haley because he did not accept that she had control over herself. Then came the words Haley's family had been waiting for: "Oh God, I am guilty of femicide." Her parents were advised to try not to show any emotion in front of the cameras when the verdict finally came in and he was found guilty. Yes, what did you think, and how did you feel? I mean, it's so hard to say it doesn't bring her back, and it doesn't give you that sense that you don't really feel better, but you do feel like you can close the book on that chapter now and start trying to move forward and, um, heal. Karen was once again given the opportunity to address the court, and this time she spoke directly to Orlando. I hope that you get the longest amount of time behind bars, because you deserve even more than that. Two weeks later, he was sentenced. In her decision, Judge Betancourt said Tercero took it upon himself to punish Haley for rejecting him, and then she punished him with the maximum of 30 years in prison. I couldn't believe it. I was so happy that we could work with this other country and that the prosecuting attorney did such a good job and was so passionate about this conviction and the judge, and it was just amazing to me. We owe the Nicaraguan authorities, the prosecutor, and the court system tremendous thanks, and they will have my gratitude for the rest of my life. 30 years is a long time. 30 years is a punishment. Orlando's friends find it hard to believe that they gave my friend a sentence. That's the maximum here, right? It's very hard. None of Orlando's friends have seen him since his conviction, but some have received phone calls and letters, including Ashley Lopez. I feel like his faith has grown a lot more, and he loves God so much that he always asks me to keep him in my prayers. To be positive, they all still support him, and some are even convinced of his citizenship.

I stand firm in saying that no, he wasn't really guilty. I feel like they're missing something. Another of Orlando's high school friends who asked to remain anonymous suspects that there is truth to Orlando's defence that he was not in his right mind when Haley was killed. I don't know if they were under the effects of alcohol, drugs, or something else, but something happened there for him to act in that way. I asked if she believes that being under the influence justifies murder. No, nothing can justify that; of course not, but I also don't know in what state the two of them would have been in for him to do that. I don't know what might have really happened in that room. I don't know if Orlando is still betting on that very question: what was his state of mind at the time of the murder? His defence attorney wants a new psychiatrist to take a look at the case; will an appeals court allow it? And is there a chance that Orlando could be set free? He's a killer, and if he didn't kill Haley that day, he probably would have killed somebody else someday, and if he's ever released, he'll kill again. It's possible. Orlando can't remember how Haley died.

On the morning of February 4, 2020, a heavily guarded Orlando Tercero was back in the Nicaraguan courtroom, this time to appeal his conviction before a panel of three magistrates. The proceedings began with Orlando's trial attorney, Eduardo Ruby, still handling the case and still arguing that Desero was highly intoxicated and temporarily insane at the time of the murder. He wants a new psychiatric evaluation. This time by a forensic psychiatrist well-versed in temporary insanity defences Josie finds it very difficult to believe that Orlando can't remember killing her friend, a nursing student. If you're strangling someone, he's going to recognise, in whatever state he's going to recognise, that this person is dying. I need to stop. How do you put that power in your own hands and look at somebody and watch their breath get taken away from them? It's so intimate to me and so brutal. I mean, it's one thing to kill somebody with a gut, but to just take their lives with your hands like that is so raw, sad, and just unbelievable. Ruby also argued that Orlando was wrongly charged with femicide and sentenced to 30 years in the U.S. He was charged with second-degree murder and would likely have faced a lighter sentence with the possibility of parole. Ruby insisted that the Nicaraguan courts are legally obligated to follow those guidelines, and to everyone's surprise, the magistrates immediately considered and rejected the request for a second psychiatric opinion. They said they would need time to deliberate on a resolution. Nearly three weeks later, we were back in New York with Karen Anderson, still awaiting a decision from the Nicaraguan courts, in what used to be Haley's bedroom, now a sanctuary for her ashes. This is Haley, right here. She's in here. I wanted to keep her with me. You said you did this; this is a very serious crime. You wish that there was a femicide law here in the U.S. Yes, and also to all of the people who see red flags, make sure you follow through and take them very seriously to help prevent these things from happening on March 10, 2020, nearly two years to the day that their daughter was murdered. Karen and Gordon Anderson were once again at the Broome County DA's office, this time to hear the Appellate Court's decision. The hearing took over an hour while an officer of the court read the 12-page decision. In the end, it took a nervous Karen Anderson took a moment to realise that the appeal had been completely denied. I appreciate all the work that you have done in helping to convict Orlando to the fullest extent of the law. Orlando's conviction and sentence would stand. Orlando will likely spend the next 30 years here in Nicaragua's main penitentiary, known for its overcrowding. Every day he will be fed a small meal of rice and beans; if he wants more, his mother will have to deliver food to the prison gates. Steve Cornwell says if, for any reason, Delcero is ever freed and even tries to step foot on American soil, Broome County will arrest him and put him on trial. There's no double jeopardy, so if for some reason he was released, the entire case can be tried here on behalf of the family. As Haley's family and friends continue to heal from their loss, they are determined to keep her memory alive. What would you say to Haley's parents if you could? Even though Haley's time was short, she had touched so many people's lives that I knew, and they should be really, really proud of who Haley was as a person. One time we were all sitting in her bed, and we talked about depression and the idea that someone is just that, like happy, innocent, pure content. I want people to know that she was kind, that she was generous, that she was hardworking, but most of all, that she loved almost everyone that she came into contact with. I want her to be remembered as the millennial hippie who just has quirky and happy qualities. You know, as sad as it is, she trusted everybody. That's a good quality. You should trust people. And then she was never seen again. He was convicted of murder, but she was never found. Where is she now?