Concrete Coffin For Missing Woman

A fugitive wanted for posing as a doctor may have buried the body of a patient — a missing Manhattan woman — in cement in his Newark, N.J., home after a botched medical procedure, authorities said Thursday.

A decomposing body was found by detectives looking for Maria Cruz, a financial analyst who vanished last year. Cruz, 35, was last seen entering her midtown apartment on April 13, 2003.

Police were waiting for the results of the autopsy to make an official identification. But police sources said investigators identified Cruz through her breast implants.

The New York Times reported that the serial numbers on Cruz' implants matched those found on the implants in the body that was dug up.

The fugitive, Dean Faiello, became a focus of the missing-person investigation after police learned that Cruz — who was one of his patients — had an appointment with him shortly before she disappeared.

Investigators were "looking at the possibility that she may have died as the result of a medical procedure," said Paul Browne, the New York Police Department's chief spokesman. He offered no further information on what procedure was involved.

Faiello was arrested in 2002 for practicing without a license and illegally possessing medical drugs but continued to work at a skin clinic in Manhattan, authorities said. He pleaded guilty in June 2003 but fled to Costa Rica before his scheduled December sentencing, authorities said.

An NYPD detective learned that around the time of the disappearance, Faiello had several bags of cement delivered to his home on Elmwood Avenue in Newark, prosecutors in New Jersey said. The cement was used to build a raised platform in a carriage house, they said.

Armed with a search warrant on Wednesday, detectives found the remains inside a large suitcase that had been encased in the cement, prosecutors said.

Cruz, who was born in the Philippines and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in March 2002, was an analyst for the banking division of Barclays Bank. Her family has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts.

The Times said those who knew Cruz described her as a deeply religious woman who attended Mass on the day she disappeared.