Buried Secrets and a Daughter’s Betrayal: How a NYC Cop Cracked a Cold Case Murder
“My brother didn’t just walk away from his family,” Ed Blackwood insisted to New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly in 2011. His frustration was palpable. For five years, Bruce Blackwood had been missing—vanished without a trace. Ed was convinced his brother had been murdered and demanded the police open a full investigation.
Bruce Blackwood was no drifter. He managed an Off-Track Betting location and owned multiple rental properties across New York City. He was a man with responsibilities, not someone who would simply disappear. From the outset, investigators had their suspicions about Luis Perez, a handyman who worked for Blackwood. And for good reason—Perez had a violent past, having served 10 years in prison for attempting to kidnap his own daughter, attacking the child’s mother, and even stabbing a state trooper. He was also caught forging 13 checks worth $7,700 in Blackwood’s name.
Perez spun a story, telling police that he had last seen Blackwood on the day of his disappearance, discussing renovations. According to him, an unknown man in a black car picked up Blackwood afterward. But neighbors recalled something chilling—Perez dismantling a power saw the very next day. Still, with no physical evidence, no witness, and no body, the case went cold. Perez was convicted only for fraud, serving a mere 25 months behind bars. Meanwhile, Blackwood remained missing.
A Brother’s Persistence Reignites the Case
Years passed. No new leads emerged. The Blackwood family, however, refused to let the case fade into obscurity. Their persistence—and media coverage—forced the NYPD to take another look. That’s when the case landed on the desk of veteran cold case detective Wendell Stradford, a man known for solving the unsolvable. Stradford retraced every step of the original investigation, determined not to fall into the same dead ends.
He dug deep, uncovering a twisted web of deceit. Blackwood’s properties were mysteriously being sold off, his assets transferred. But here’s where things took an unexpected turn—Perez had been in prison when some of these transactions occurred. Was there someone else involved? Investigators followed the money trail and found that it was none other than Blackwood’s own brother handling the sales. While not implicated in the crime, his actions only added to the murkiness surrounding the case.
Then came the breakthrough: Perez’s own daughter stepped forward with a damning revelation—her father had bragged about the murder.
A Killer’s Own Daughter Brings Him Down
Perez’s daughter approached the NYPD precinct with shocking information. She had overheard her father boasting about how he had gotten away with murder. But hearsay wasn’t enough to convict a killer. Stradford needed hard evidence.
The young woman agreed to do the unthinkable—secretly record her father’s confession. The first attempt failed. The poor-quality audio captured only snippets, muffled by background noise. But she was determined.
Living under the same roof as her father, she knew he had a habit of gloating about his crimes. The second time, she got everything—every gruesome, stomach-churning detail. On tape, Perez compared dismembering Blackwood’s body to cutting up a chicken. It was the kind of chilling confession detectives rarely get, and it was all they needed to take him down.
The Arrest That Took Too Long
With the recording in hand, investigators zeroed in. They corroborated Perez’s confession with additional witness statements from others he had boasted to over the years. The walls were closing in. Finally, after years of uncertainty, Perez was arrested for the murder of Bruce Blackwood.
Detective Stradford, reflecting on the case, emphasized the key to solving cold cases: persistence. “You can’t do what everybody else did before,” he said. “You have to be willing to go down different paths, question every assumption, and never let the case collect dust.”
For the Blackwood family, justice had been agonizingly slow, but at last, they had answers. And in a bitter twist of fate, it was the killer’s own daughter—his flesh and blood—who sealed his fate.
The case of Bruce Blackwood stands as a stark reminder that even the most meticulously concealed crimes can unravel when the right people refuse to give up.
