Shallow Graves

by Maureen Boyle

  Chandra was confused. Her mother? Dead? It didn’t make sense.

  Back at the house, Debra Greenlaw DeMello’s brothers and sister called their mother into the living room.

  Sit down, her son, Brian, told her. We have some bad news.

  Madeline Perry began to cry. Was it Larry? Did something happen to Larry?

  The siblings looked at each other and realized their other brother, Larry, who lived in nearby Wareham, wasn’t there.

  “No, it isn’t Larry,” Wayne recalls telling her. “It’s Deb.”

  Madeline Perry’s children surrounded her, and heard the high-pitched cry of a heart now broken.

  5THE INVESTIGATION EXPANDS

  THE CONFERENCE ROOM at the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office was crammed with cops. Jose recognized most of the faces: detectives from New Bedford, Dartmouth, Freetown, Providence, and, of course, the Massachusetts State Police. It was mid-December in 1988, and the case, they knew, was getting big—too big for the state police unit assigned to the office. They needed more investigative boots on the ground. They needed to tap into every source, delve into every lead, talk to both the reliable and the unreliable people who claimed to have information. And they needed to do it quickly. Most homicides are solved within forty-eight hours, when memories are fresh and evidence fresher. This was an ice-cold case in ninety-degree temperatures before anyone even knew it existed. The best witnesses were drug addicts with a hazy sense of time. The crime scenes were weathered by rain, heat, and age. Identifying the victims was difficult and laborious. If there was ever an investigative nightmare, this was it.

  Bob St. Jean, the former Massachusetts state trooper who was now chief investigator for the district attorney, was sitting at the table, making the introductions, outlining what information they had—and didn’t have. Could this be part of a bigger case, Bob asked the group.

  He turned to the Providence detectives—Stephen Springer and Timothy O’Brien. Eight women, all but one a prostitute, had been killed in the Providence area since 1978.1 Some were strangled. Could it be the same killer?

  Four other women were killed in New Bedford, all seen leaving local bars, between 1986 and the spring of 1988. Could it be the same killer?

  The men arrested for picking up prostitutes or suspected of beating, raping, or stabbing them in years past. Could one of them be the killer?

  The men released from the state’s treatment center for the sexually dangerous. Could one or more of them be the killer?

  There were serial killings across the country, such as the Green River killings in Washington State, where forty-one women were found dumped in the woods, or the White River Junction killings on the Vermont–New Hampshire border, where nine were found dead. What about the bodies of prostitutes found near Route 8 in Waterbury, Connecticut? Could any of those cases be linked?

  Is the killer a fisherman now trolling for other victims in another port? Is he dead? In jail? A truck driver picking victims in another state? Is he someone with a badge—a security guard, a prison guard, a deputy sheriff, a cop?

  How should they move forward? What should be the next step? How should they coordinate what would likely be the largest, most time-consuming, and frustrating investigation in the area?

  Bob St. Jean knew coordinating the investigation—and the different detectives—would be a challenge. As he looked around the room, he knew who the shirkers and the workers were. He knew some disdained the district attorney, Ronald A. Pina. He knew some of them didn’t like him. He knew some police agencies played nice with others in the field and others worked in law-enforcement silos. He also knew a big part of the investigation would come down to money. The local police departments didn’t have extra manpower to spare. The district attorney’s office would need to come up with some overtime cash both for those working on the case and those filling in for those detectives. To solve these murders, they needed cooperation, cash, and a lot of political finesse. He hoped he could pull it off.

  The biggest challenge, Bob knew, would be the district attorney. Ron Pina had a knack for picking the best and the brightest young prosecutors and investigators for his office. He had a “take no prisoners” approach to investigations, taking on high-profile drug cases that webbed through the community and state. He was funny, personable, and media savvy. But he could also have a dismissive attitude some found insulting. And he liked to talk. Some thought the district attorney talked too much and to too many people. Investigators privately worried he would turn the intricacies of an investigation into cocktail or dinner chatter. They worried who at the next restaurant table would be listening. In New Bedford someone was always listening when Ron talked.

  Today, though, Bob St. Jean was staying upbeat. There might be a few on the team who wouldn’t work hard, but there were other investigators who were good—no, great. They could solve this. They would solve this.

  The first step would be to see what they had: what was fact, what was fiction, what was a mix of the two.

  In the meantime, more information kept coming in. One woman told Freetown police that she saw a man dragging something from a vehicle parked in the breakdown lane on Route 140 northbound. Another woman told Rhode Island State Police a man driving an eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer picked her up as she walked along Belleville Avenue in New Bedford then tossed her out on Interstate 95 in Warwick, Rhode Island, just north of Route 117. She told police the man, who said his name was “Jimmy,” claimed to be the highway killer. A teenaged girl claimed she was abducted, punched, and then thrown out of a car on Interstate 195.

  When there was a question during the meeting, people turned to Trooper Jose Gonsalves who had some, if not all, of the answers. He had been at all but the first murder scene, had talked with most of the families, and had been spending hours each night with Maryann interviewing potential witnesses. In a level tone, Jose filled in the details about the current case, the difficulties tracking the last hours of the victims, who had been interviewed so far, what evidence—or lack of evidence—was found, the number of possible suspects. There was just one question he couldn’t answer: who did it.

  New Bedford detectives Richard Ferreira, Gardner Greany, and Gary Baron listened intently, scribbling an occasional note. Working with the state police on homicides was routine for them. However, this case, they knew, would stretch their investigative talents.

  “We knew this was something big,” Ferreira would later say. “There was a sense of excitement in the room.”2

  By the end of the meeting, each detective had a task. Look up a record, check a suspect, interview a witness. Some local detectives paired up with state troopers, a signal of interagency cooperation. They all agreed to formally meet again to go over what they found. In the meantime, each would keep in touch and share what was learned. It would be the first of what would be weekly meetings of Massachusetts investigators working the case.

  Bob St. Jean left the meeting feeling encouraged. He liked the way most of the group interacted. We can solve this, he thought.

  JUDY DESANTOS clutched the candle as she stood outside city hall, the place where she spent her working days. Tonight, she would walk with 150 others in a candlelight march through downtown to remember her sister and the other women found dead or still missing. She would walk past the district attorney’s office, past the police station, and then sit for a community service in the 150-year-old Norman Gothic–style First Unitarian Church built near the top of the Union Street hill on Eighth Street.

  It was a few days before New Year’s Eve and her sister’s remains, which had been identified before Christmas, were now being examined by an expert at the Smithsonian as part of the murder investigation. This vigil was the closest to a funeral Judy and her nieces would have for now. It was cold and it was damp outside. Judy wondered what her sister would think about all of this, whether she would have gone to a similar vigil for someone else. Would Nancy, ever the teasing big sister, be proud of her tonight?


  Judy scanned the crowd. She recognized most of the faces: some were community and religious leaders, some were community activists, some were city officials. The faces she needed to see were the ones like hers, the faces of the families of the dead and the missing. There is strength in numbers. She sat back in the church pew and listened to the speakers. She was hoping for comfort; she was hoping for answers.

  “I am here to say that no one deserved to be brutalized or killed,” the Reverend Ulises Torres told people gathered at the service. “Some have suggested that the victims lived dangerous lives. Even if we make this assumption, we must ask the questions: Why is it so many feel compelled to resort to drugs? Why are we in the United States one of the most violent societies in the world?”3

  Judy left that night with more questions.

  NANCY PAIVA’s immediate family met at the gravesite, a half dozen relatives, in the January chill at Pine Grove Cemetery in New Bedford about a week after the downtown vigil. Maryann and Jose stood a discreet distance away, watching to see who else might drive in. There had been no wake, no funeral Mass; just a cremation followed by this simple gathering with little fanfare. It was what Nancy would have wanted, her sister knew. Even this was probably more than she would have wanted. Nancy embraced the philosophy of laughing loudly, dancing freely, seeing challenges as opportunities. She didn’t think of death, only life. That was the Nancy her sister would always remember. That was the Nancy she would celebrate. This service wasn’t really for Nancy but for her children.

  A small box adorned with a crucifix held Nancy’s ashes at the grave. The gravestone of her parents was a few inches away. It had been six months since Nancy went missing and was likely killed. It had been one month since she was officially identified. It had been a long process getting to this place in the cemetery. As they stood in the cold, listening to the minister, Judy and Nancy’s children felt the waves of grief they thought had long subsided.

  They listened to minister from the Methodist church in Fairhaven read 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 and cried.

  “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

  MOURNERS PAUSED before the photograph of Dawn Mendes atop the silver casket at Burgo Funeral Home. Flowers surrounded the smiling image. Some made the sign of the cross. Some bowed their heads. Some wiped away tears.

  Forty people gathered in the first floor of the funeral home that January 21, 1989, day as the Reverend Z. L. Grady of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church spoke.

  “The ordeal is now over. The body has been found and our hopes for survival have vanished,” he told them.

  Faith in God can help overcome the pain, he said.

  “The light shines in the midst of darkness and the darkness will not put it out.”4

  THERE WOULD BE NO WAKE; Madeline Perry was adamant on the issue. Throughout her daughter’s life, she had struggled to keep Debra away from drugs and drug users. Faced with her death, Madeline did not want to see the people whom she blamed for indirectly killing her child. “I don’t want those people to show up” her children and granddaughter remember her saying. “I don’t want them there.”5

  So, instead of gathering at Conley Funeral Home to say a final goodbye before the funeral, the family was sitting the morning of January 25 in the pews of St. Colman’s Catholic Church on Wendell Avenue in Brockton, the same church where thousands gathered thirty years earlier for Mass after boxer Rocky Marciano was killed.

  Debra’s brothers escorted her simple casket into the church. Chandra and her little brother, Justin, sat stunned next to their grandmother. After Mass, the twenty-plus family and friends drove to Melrose Cemetery where Debra’s final resting place was in an area of tiny flat stones. Her daughter called the spot nondescript and sad.

  THROUGHOUT JANUARY the funeral rituals continued for the families of those found. In Fall River, the family of Debra Ann Medeiros gathered at Oliveira Funeral Home, while in Falmouth, the family of Rochelle Clifford Dopierala grieved. As five families buried their dead throughout the month, the families of six missing women were still waiting for answers.

  Even before the fifth body was buried, Bob St. Jean was making plans to bring the Connecticut trooper Andy Rebmann and his wonder dog back to the state to look for others. Andy was also making plans to bring in additional search dogs and police handlers from throughout New England to help him. The dogs would search on the highways for victims as the state police and local investigators continued to search the streets to learn who put the women there.

  MARYANN grabbed a bag of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips from the convenience-store rack and a bottle of Diet Pepsi from the refrigerator as Jose snatched a bag of pretzel rods and a diet A & W Root Beer. It was eight o’clock, and this was what would pass for dinner tonight: junk food from the 7-Eleven on the bottom floor of the six-story brick building housing the district attorney’s office. Just as they did every night, the two had a list of people to talk with and an open notebook tucked in a pocket to write down names and nicknames of anyone else who might be able help. They pushed open the glass doors and stepped into the chilly downtown street.

  It was the beginning of January and, for the first time since the bodies were found along the highways, the troopers were officially on the case full-time. For months, they had still been on the on-call list, taking turns with other troopers in the homicide unit responding to murders at all hours of the day. Taking Maryann and Jose off the list meant others would have fewer weekends off, more late-night calls to murder scenes across the county, and a bigger workload. Bristol County was already a busy and diverse county—556 square miles stretching from the coastline and Rhode Island to the south and from bedroom communities less than an hour from Boston to the north. It included four cities and sixteen towns, including farming communities and wealthy suburbs. If there was an unattended death in any of those places, local uniformed officers might get there first, but the state police unit assigned to the DA’s office was required by law to investigate. In 1988, the unit investigated 213 suspicious or unattended deaths, including 25 homicides. The unit also answered 422 complaints, served more than 70 search warrants, and arrested 13 people on murder charges.

  Maryann and Jose knew it was tough on their colleagues when the two of them were taken off the on-call list and were glad they didn’t grumble, at least within earshot. Everyone in the unit was working together, trying to get information, trying to solve what they feared might be an unsolvable case. Maryann and Jose, often joined by New Bedford detective Richie Ferreira, cruised the streets four to five nights a week tracking down street people. During the day, they made calls, went to court to find potential witnesses who were there facing criminal charges, and sorted through the tips on a case hotline set up by the district attorney. They knew other troopers and local detectives were doing the same: following up leads, and interviewing people in the county jails, state prisons, and rehab centers. Some people—or teams of people—were assigned a specific person to investigate. Members of the Bristol County Drug Task Force were quietly asking about the lawyer Kenny Ponte who had moved to Florida and checking with Florida authorities to see what he was up to down there. One detective from Freetown, Alan Alves, inquired about any satanic cult ties to the deaths. Others were checking which fishing boats had come up from the south and when they left to see if a fisherman might be the killer. Still others checked Coast Guard records and the background of a petty officer who had been arrested with a prostitute. Everyone was searching records for known sex offenders, keeping an eye out for cars and trucks matching the descriptions of the vehicles driven by violent or kinky men who picked up prostitutes, and looking through past reports of suspicious activity on the highways.

  In any homicide investig
ation, detectives interview acquaintances, friends, coworkers, and relatives of the victim to try to create a timeline of the person’s last days and hours. They try to pinpoint who last saw the person, where the victim had been, and who might want to do the individual harm. If a suspect surfaces, detectives will check the person’s alibi and, if there is physical evidence to compare, take fingerprints as well as blood and hair samples. In 1988, DNA samples were just beginning to be taken. In this murder case, there were several people of “interest” to police and different teams of investigators set out to find out as much as possible about them. Some fell quickly by the wayside. Nancy’s boyfriend, Frankie Pina, was one of the first eliminated because he was jailed during part of the killing spree. Others needed a harder look.

  In the highway killing case, police looked at crewmembers from out-of-state fishing boats, long-distance truck drivers, drug dealers, former and current cops, cop-wannabes, businessmen, construction workers, strike-breaker truck drivers at a nearby business, and military personnel. They looked at men who had been arrested picking up prostitutes, and they looked at the men never arrested who prostitutes said picked them up. They followed up on one tip that a guy in a bar confessed to the killings and another about a Rhode Island–based prostitution ring.

  The information coming in was promising—and there was a lot of it. New Bedford detective Gardner Greany talked with a hooker who said a Rhode Island man once gripped her throat tight, saying “I could kill you right here and throw you right out of my truck.” Detective Gary Baron brought up the name of a Freetown man who picked up prostitutes and was known to be violent. Trooper Deborah Bruce and New Bedford detective Richard Ferreira talked with another woman about a john who foamed at the mouth and spoke in “tongues.” Trooper Kevin Butler interviewed a prostitute who got two black eyes when she was knocked out with a punch to the face then raped for nearly an hour. Trooper Kenneth Martin was keeping track of evidence and helping to interview people. And there were more, so many more, doing whatever they could to include—or exclude—suspects. For every suspect crossed off the list, two more were added. They needed to narrow the focus and broaden the investigation simultaneously.