July 22, 2026 – Springfield, Massachusetts – Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni announced today that Joseph James Ceravolo Jr. has been identified as the person responsible for the 1995 murder of Celestina Perez.

Ceravolo died in 2013. Following extensive investigative work, including the use of cutting-edge forensic testing, led by the Unresolved and Unidentified Case Investigation Unit of the Hampden District Attorney’s Office, Springfield Police Department, and with support of the Massachusetts State Police, the homicide investigation into Perez’s death is now officially closed.

“Although we may never know every detail of what happened that night or what motivated this brutal act, the evidence establishes that Joseph James Ceravolo Jr. assaulted and killed Celestina Perez in the early morning hours of June 2, 1995,” Gulluni said. “If Ceravolo were alive today, he would be charged with the murder of Ms. Celestina Perez.”

Perez was 24 years old and the mother of four young children when she was killed. On the afternoon of June 2, 1995, two men walking through Gurdon Bill Park discovered her body in a ravine near Genesee and Warwick streets in Springfield’s Lower Liberty Heights neighborhood.

Springfield Police officers and detectives responded alongside personnel from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the Massachusetts State Police Crime Scene Services Section and Crime Laboratory. Investigators observed evidence that a violent struggle had begun near the top of the ravine and continued down the slope, with Perez being dragged at times to where her body was found. Blood was documented on twigs, foliage, and soil along the slope, and two buttons believed to have been torn from her blouse were recovered. Her right shoe was found along a park path approximately four feet from her body.

The scene was thoroughly documented, and Perez’s clothing, bloodstained vegetation, and other evidence were carefully collected and preserved. That work ultimately allowed investigators to reexamine the evidence using forensic technology that was not available in 1995.

An autopsy determined that Perez died from asphyxia caused by manual strangulation, with additional blunt-force trauma to her head. Her death was ruled a homicide.

Detectives interviewed Perez’s family, friends, and those who had been with her during the hours before her death. They thoroughly canvassed the neighborhood and investigated the available leads but were unable to identify her killer at that time.

Over the past two years, the Hampden District Attorney’s Office Unresolved and Unidentified Case Investigation Unit identified Perez’s case as one that could benefit from renewed investigative work and advances in DNA testing.

Based on the nature of the assault and the blood evidence documented at the scene, investigators believed Perez’s killer may have injured himself during the attack. That made the preserved bloodstains on her clothing particularly significant when the case was reexamined.

Earlier forensic testing focused primarily on swabs collected during Perez’s autopsy. A 2009 examination did not yield sufficient DNA for STR testing, and no further testing was conducted at that time.

Recent testing of Perez’s preserved clothing was requested. Testing by the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory detected blood on her underwear and developed a major male DNA profile suitable for entry into the Combined DNA Index System, commonly known as CODIS.

The profile produced a CODIS match to Ceravolo, who was 32 years old and living in Springfield at the time of Perez’s death. The evidentiary profile was estimated to exclude 99.99 percent of the population.

District Attorney Gulluni then authorized additional independent testing of Perez’s clothing by DNA Labs International. A separate bloodstain on a different area of her underwear produced the same major male DNA profile. The probability that an unrelated person selected at random would be included as a contributor to that profile was approximately one in 130 million.

Ceravolo also could not be excluded as a contributor to a DNA mixture developed from another bloodstain on the outside pocket of Perez’s jeans.

Two forensic laboratories independently tested bloodstains from different locations on Perez’s clothing and identified the same major male DNA profile. That profile matched Ceravolo.

Investigators further determined that Ceravolo lived within a short walk of Gurdon Bill Park in 1995 and was not incarcerated or known to be in a hospital or treatment facility when Perez was killed. The investigation also documented a history of assaultive behavior, including a violent domestic assault committed weeks after Perez’s death that resulted in his arrest, prosecution, and conviction.

Ceravolo died of natural causes in 2013 at the age of 50. Although his death prevents an arrest or prosecution, Gulluni directed investigators to continue their work and seek independent forensic confirmation before reaching this conclusion.

“Even when a suspect cannot be prosecuted, we have an ethical obligation to the victim’s family, to the public, and to the person identified to ensure that our conclusion rests on a thorough investigation and reliable evidence,” Gulluni said. “Because Ceravolo is deceased, there can be no courtroom verdict. That is a painful limitation, and it is not the outcome Celestina or her family deserves. But there is now an answer. There is no longer any mystery. And after 31 years, the murder of Celestina Perez is no longer unresolved.”

District Attorney Gulluni and his investigative team met with Perez’s family to share the findings before they were made public.

“Nothing we announce today can return Celestina to the children who grew up without their mother or erase the grief her family has carried for 31 years,” Gulluni said. “We remain sorrowful with them, but we hope that this work brings some measure of peace and closure.”

Gulluni recognized the Springfield Police Department and Captain Trent Duda, whose involvement spanned from the response in 1995 through his leadership of the renewed investigation as captain of the department’s Homicide Unit.

He also recognized members of the District Attorney’s Office Unresolved and Unidentified Case Investigation Unit: Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Farris; Massachusetts State Police Sergeant Thomas Sullivan and Trooper Angela Delano; Investigators Thomas Svec and Thomas Kennedy; and Coordinator Cassidy Seaver.

Gulluni additionally acknowledged Springfield Police Superintendent Larry Akers, who responded to the scene as a detective in 1995; Officer Ruben Borrero Sr., who photographed the scene and collected evidence; Officer Ruben Borrero Jr., who helped coordinate the review, packaging and delivery of evidence for independent testing; and Tracy Breton, Jennifer Montgomery, and Sidney Collins of the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory.

“This case and the conclusion we reached validates why we do this work. Why we dedicate days, weeks, months, and years to these victims and their cases and the justice they so deserve,” Gulluni said. “Celestina Perez was a mother, a daughter, a sister, and an aunt. She was loved. Her life mattered. Today, after 31 years, we can finally say that the person responsible for taking her life has been identified. This is why we never forget. Why we never quit.”