What Happened To Liza Marie Ruiz?

Along the Merrimack River, just 30 miles north of Boston is the bachata swinging, immigrant city of Lawrence, Massachusetts. One of the state’s most mischievous children, the Hispanic dominated community ranked #9 on the FBI’s most dangerous cities in Massachusetts crime statistics in 2019 and although crime has decreased in recent years, the crime rate is still 75% higher than of other U.S cities. Lawrence is so notorious it was singled out and criticized for its drug problem by former President Donald Trump in 2018.

News travels fast in the city of about 80,000. Whenever anything happens the local newspaper, the Eagle Tribune, is usually first on site to capture the action and you’d read the details in the paper the next morning if not hours later online. But where was the Eagle Tribune, in fact where was CBS Boston, WGBH, WBZ- where was the media on Sunday December 3rd, 2017, when the lifeless body of 18-year-old Liza Ruiz was discovered at her Kingston Street home?

I didn’t know Liza very well. We ran track together briefly and I don’t think we ever had more than two casual conversations, but I think about her all the time now. When you saw her in the halls of Greater Lawrence Technical High School, you couldn’t help but to stop and stare because she was just that stunning. Actually, I remember the first time I met her I was surprised to find out she was three years younger than me because she was this tall model like beauty with mature, gracefully symmetrical features. Wide hips and full lips. Olive eyes that just popped off her olive skin. She was eye-catching. You could easily pick her out of a crowd, and rarely did I ever see her alone. She was always surrounded by friends and smiling faces. You didn’t have to know her well to know this girl had a bright future.

On the morning of December 9th, 2017, I logged into Facebook and started scrolling down my timeline when I came across a repost of a GoFundMe link asking for donations to “Help Liza Rest in Peace” with a picture of the beautiful olive-skinned girl I knew. Immediately, my stomach twisted in knots. It was an absolute shock reading that on December 3rd, Liza had “passed away”. Her death was only described as “unexpected”. You cannot tell a crime junkie that a vibrant young girl just passed away unexpectedly, especially someone I knew. I needed details, so I scoured the internet looking for clues. Google proved to be unhelpful. To my surprise the GoFundMe link was the only thing available. So, I hit Facebook and as I read through the many R.I.P and memorial posts from her many friends and family, I came across one particular post where one girl commented that Liza was found dead in her room with a plastic bag over her head. Soon the streets were whispering murder and asphyxiation.

Days later a short obituary was released describing a girl with a Midas touch. Liza Marie Ruiz was born in the summer of 1999, the middle child to two proud parents. She graduated high school in the spring of 2017 and went on to pursue journalism at the local college. An open casket funeral was held in Lawrence, where she is now buried. And that was it. That was the only news available to the public, until more than a year later on January 27th, 2018, when Liza’s mother Raquel broke her silence on the popular Spanish news channel Univision. In her interview her mother confirmed the rumors that Liza was indeed found dead with a plastic bag over her head in her Kingston street home. Raquel expressed how upon arriving at the scene, the police immediately suspected suicide. A month after the death, Raquel met with investigators to get an update on her daughter’s case only to find they had made no progress in finding anyone responsible and reiterated their suspicions of suicide. A theory her mother says is absurd. She claims Liza was a happy and popular girl. She had just graduated high school, just started college and had plans. There was no reason for her to kill herself, nor were there any signs of suicide in the days prior to her death.

Could Liza have put a plastic bag over her head and killed herself? According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, women are three times less likely than men to commit suicide and the suicide rate for Hispanics is less than half that of the non-Hispanic white population. To kill yourself using a plastic bag seems a bit unorthodox. However, the most common methods of suicide among women are, in order: firearms, poisoning and suffocation. This past January, Massachusetts released their report on Suicides in Massachusetts for 2017. The state reported that the most prevalent means of suicide for females were hanging/suffocation. Among men and women, twenty-four victims used plastic bags as a means of suffocation, either alone or with a gas such as helium or propane.

After that day Raquel completely lost faith in local law enforcement, believing they want to sweep her daughter’s murder under the rug. She adamantly claims her daughter’s death was a homicide and although I didn’t know Liza very well, I have to agree. The city of Lawrence has a history of gruesome murders. In 2019, 18-year-old Matthew Borges was convicted for the murder and beheading of his 16-year-old classmate Lee Manuel Paulino in November 2016. Borges was only 15 at the time. In 2015, 65-year-old Nelson Delarosa shot and killed his 33- year-old girlfriend before he turned the gun of himself, all in front of their 9-year-old son. In 2011, another Greater Lawrence student was shot to death alongside his mother and sister by his mother’s boyfriend inside their Beacon Street home. These are just a few of the incidents that have occurred in my lifetime.

Liza’s death is certainly suspicious but without further effort from the police, a mother is left with more questions than answers. That is literally all the information the public has on the case. I search for an update every couple of months but there is nothing, which leads me to wonder why? Why has Liza’s story gotten almost no media attention? What information is the police holding back if they have any? How can the police be so sure this was a suicide? Who was the last person to see Liza alive? Were cell phone records checked? Did they fingerprint her home, her phone, the plastic bag or all the points of entry? Did they question everyone in her life to see if she had issues with anyone? Who could have had a motive? Was there anything taken from the home? Could this be a crime of passion? Did Liza know something she wasn’t supposed to, or did she wrong the wrong person?

Today Raquel awaits more information. She believes whoever is responsible is a coward that got away with the perfect murder but also believes one day she will get justice for her daughter.

Liza was very photogenic. She’d pop up on my Instagram feed often and through the years I saw her get her license, go to the beach, eat ice cream, get a piercing, celebrate holidays and welcome the birth of her baby brother. Her last picture posted on November 21, 2017, less than two weeks before her death, showed a bright smiled Liza fabulously dressed in ombre grey hair, loving her dog. The perfect remnant of a promising young girl.

We walked the same halls, said hello to the same teachers. We knew the excitement of Greater Lawrence prom and homecoming. The deliciousness of Big N Beefy at 2AM. We walked the same streets and knew a lot of the same people and if she wasn’t taken so soon we could have been better friends which is probably why this story hits so close to home. Someone stole her spark and in a city where everyone knows everyone, it’s frightening to know we could be going about our days smiling in the face of a killer.

If you have any information about the death of Liza Marie Ruiz, please contact the Lawrence Police Department at (978) 794-5900