user: By. Rachel Quigley. PUBLISHED:. 11:25 EST, 10 October 2013. |. UPDATED:. 11:25 EST, 10 October 2013. The true identity of 'Baby Hope' has finally been revealed 22 years after her abused and beaten body was found squashed into a cooler and dumped off a New York highway. The child was named today as Angelica Ramirez, which was discovered when police tracked down the girl's mother after receiving a tip from a woman who believed she knew the older sister of 'Baby Hope'. The sister told investigators she remembers traveling to Mexico with her father after leaving Angelica with her mother and then never seeing her again. Scroll down for video. Missing: The first picture is a current, age-progression sketch of Angelica Ramirez, the second is the sketch released in 1991, and the third photo is of the cooler which the child was found inside. Write caption he. Grisly discovery: The cooler containing Baby Hope was found in Washington Heights, on an embankment off the Henry Hudson Parkway. After releasing a sketch of the girl. in July when the NYPD were making a renewed push to solve the. decades-old case, police tracked down her mother - who has not been identified - in Washington Heights, the New York Post reports. The mother told police she did not. want to call them because her partner was. abusive. She last saw him in 1991 when he took the children and told her to 'disappear' before slamming a door in her face. One of her daughters was brought back to her through a relative but Angelica was never seen again. A police source told the New York. Daily News that the fugitive father - who is believed to be in Mexico -. is now the main suspect in the brutal slaying. The mother said she 'tried to find. out about them, and to see them, but she says he told her to get lost', a. police source said, and she wondered for 22 years what happened to her. child. Police have obtained the birth certificate that identified Angelica,. although other information, such as the date and place of birth, were. not revealed. She is believed to have been between. the age of three and five. when she died. She was found tied with rope and squeezed into a picnic. cooler beneath full cans of Coca-Cola off the Henry Hudson Parkway. Tests revealed she had been sexually abused. Hopeful: Locals examine a poster put up by police in July 2013 in the area where Baby Hope was found in New York City. Outpouring: (Left) The gravesite of Baby Hope, paid for by the NYPD's 34th Precinct and (right) a sketch of what Baby Hope may have looked like. NYPD Assistant Chief Joe Reznick, who. was running the 34th Precinct Detective Squad when the tragic girl was. found told the Daily News: 'As the years increased, the frustration. increased with those years and the optimism declined a little bit. 'But I. never lost faith. I gotta admit, I never lost faith. The real thing is a. feeling of relief.' Police have conducted follow-up interviews and confirmed the mother's identity using scientific evidence, a source told the New York Times. No names were being released as the case remains a murder investigation and no charges have been brought so far. In. July, around the 22nd anniversary of the unsolved case, police. circulated the neighborhood around Dyckman Street in Washington Heights. near the wooded area where the child was found, speaking to residents. and offering a $12,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest. and conviction. The little girl had been malnourished and tests showed she had endured sexual abuse and she died of asphyxia. She was naked except for a hair-tie with yellow plastic baubles on it. She had black hair and was white, possibly Hispanic. The child was badly decomposed, making. her facial features unrecognizable, and no one came forward to claim. her. No one had filed a missing persons report and there were very few. clues. Changing neighborhood: Washington Heights has one of the lowest crime rates in Manhattan, but in the '80s and early '90s, when Baby Hope was killed, the area was deeply affected by a crack cocaine epidemic and gang activity. Even for hardened New York City cops,. the case was a sad and grisly one. Detectives named the girl 'Baby. Hope', in the hope that someone would come forward and help them find. out who she was and what happened to her. Two. years after her discovery, Baby Hope was buried in St Hamond's. ceremony. The police of the 34th Precinct pooled their money and paid. for her gravestone. She was buried in a white communion dress. Years. passed, and still no one came forward. In 2007, Baby Hope's body was. exhumed to try and extract a DNA sample, but her bones were in such bad. condition it was impossible. A. second attempt in 2011, using improved technology yielded a complete. DNA profile, and police immediately ran a check on all their convicted. felon and missing persons databases but came up empty-handed. Hope: Police canvass the neighborhood in Washington Heights where the little girl's body was found 22 years ago. At the time of Baby Hope's death in 1991, Washington Heights was in the thrall of a crack cocaine epidemic and the area was known for gangs and violence. Now, it has one of the lowest crime rates in Manhattan and families with young children walk the streets with impunity. There are a lot of new faces, but police are optimistic that some of the older members of the community remember the case of Baby Hope.
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assistant: Angelica Ramirez was found dead in a picnic cooler off a Manhattan freeway in 1991. The child had been starved, sexually abused and suffocated to death. She was never reported missing and no one came forward with any leads as to her identity. Now her mother said she was scared of her abusive partner, who took Angelica and never came back.