Shallow Graves

by Maureen Boyle

  Bristol County district attorney Ronald A. Pina didn’t give all those details when he stood on the steps of the courthouse after Kenny was arraigned on gun charges on January 18, 1989. What he did instead was intensify the media spotlight on Kenny. He said the attorney knew several of the murder victims and, when asked to assist, wouldn’t cooperate in the homicide investigation.

  “He refused to help us,” Pina told reporters. “He had nothing to say. . . . We were hopeful we would be talking to him today.”3

  Pina claimed to reporters that Kenny originally agreed to provide samples of his hair, saliva, and fingerprints—then backed off. Investigators wanted pubic, head hair, saliva, finger, and palm prints and full-body photographs as part of the “identification” process, the district attorney insisted. Court papers filed by the prosecution would note that Kenny knew at least three of the women found dead. The prosecutor stopped short of calling him a murder suspect.

  There was no DNA evidence needed in the gun case, and Kenny’s attorney, Joseph Harrington, knew that. He noted, in opposing the request, that what the prosecution wanted was “far reaching.” A judge later that month would agree. The saliva and hair samples would stay impounded; the prosecution could have mug shots as well as finger and palm prints. In a nine-page ruling, superior court judge George Jacobs made it clear to the prosecution: just because someone knows a person who was killed doesn’t automatically make that person a suspect. “The information supplied to the court does not even amount to the articulation of a suspicion or hunch. There has been no demonstration of a need to search.”4 A layman’s translation: the prosecution was on a fishing exhibition.

  JOSE GONSALVES was now getting worried. The district attorney was coyly tossing the name of an attorney from the city to reporters along with bits of information: Kenny Ponte may know the victims. Kenny Ponte wasn’t cooperating. Kenny Ponte left the area in November. Kenny Ponte had a history of drug use. The individual bits were tossed like bread crumbs. Follow them. Wink. Where does it lead? Wink. What does he know? Wink.

  This was not how Jose, or any of the investigators, liked to work. To him, it seemed like the DA developed that “tunnel vision” Jose always guarded against. Put on investigative blinders and you may miss evidence. Keep an open mind, Jose would always say. Things aren’t always what you think. Jose wasn’t sure why the DA was so focused on Kenny Ponte. There were other suspects, potentially better suspects, out there, men who had beaten and raped prostitutes, violent men with records, sex offenders. They were still looking at these other people. There could even be other suspects they haven’t come across yet. Kenny was odd and Kenny was arrogant and he wasn’t a person Jose would want to spend a lot of time with. But that didn’t make him a killer. You needed proof to show that.

  Jose knew that the New Bedford detective who had planted those first seeds of the investigation, John Dextradeur, considered Kenny an intriguing character who might have some type of role in the case. John, though, initially was focused on Nancy’s boyfriend. Dextradeur was also out of the investigation before it really took off, and for all intents and purposes off the job—out on a job-related medical leave and headed for a disability retirement. Things can shift from the start of a case, Jose knew. A good suspect today could turn out to be an unfortunate boob with just the wrong friends or someone who was in the wrong place. Was that Kenny? There was political pressure, Jose suspected, to solve this case quickly. He hoped no one would break under it. The case against Kenny Ponte was just one part of the investigation. They couldn’t get sidetracked. They couldn’t get tunnel vision.

  In the meantime, there were more people to interview, more information to follow up with, more forensic evidence results to come in. It would now be even harder to do than before. By February 20, 1989, Maryann and Jose were back on the on-call rotation, which meant they would also be investigating other homicides in the county. After roughly two months working the case full-time, their time would now be split between newer murders and the biggest serial-killing case in the state since the Boston Strangler in the early 1960s.

  IN THE LOCAL LEGAL COMMUNITY, the focus on Kenny Ponte was troubling. Some defense attorneys thought Kenny was the victim of trial by media and innuendo. Some found it unethical and unfair. The lawyers talked about it in the courthouse hallways, over lunch, over after-work drinks. What was going on? Why was the district attorney taking this approach? What would it mean for other cases?

  Only one attorney, other than Kenny’s lawyer, would speak out publically at first. “I am disappointed that a man who has not been indicted and not been charged . . . in a series of heinous crimes, could have his personal life depicted in your newspaper,” Thomas R. Hunt, the attorney, told the Standard-Times. Kenny was surprised by the allegations, he said. “He’s disappointed, surprised; he’s outraged. He can’t understand it and frankly neither can I.”5

  Thomas R. Hunt was a local attorney who worked quietly in the city. His general-law practice focused on the usual cases average people went to court for: personal injury and probate matters. His cases didn’t garner headlines and neither did his personal life. His speaking out illustrated how troubling the criminal-defense community was finding the case.

  At the state police unit in the district attorney’s office, people were also concerned. There was a long list of suspects they were still looking at. Why was Kenny’s name out there?

  Staff Sgt. Gale P. Stevens, commander of the state police unit in the DA’s office, tried to downplay speculation that Kenny was a suspect, saying troopers didn’t view the lawyer as “one of the key hitters” in the investigation.6 He also downplayed the reaction of the state police search dog at Kenny’s office, saying it could have been prompted by human scents. The dog may have just made a mistake.

  INVESTIGATORS WORKING out of the district attorney’s office were puzzled. How did word of the search of Kenny’s office get out to the media, particularly the Boston press? Who was the leak? Did it come from the office or someone who saw them there? Things spread quickly in the community, they knew. Likely, the information did not come from anyone on the case, they agreed. However, the district attorney demanded answers—and demanded action regarding the leak.

  Freetown detective sgt. Alan Alves was not part of the inner circle at the DA’s office but had always worked well with the state police members assigned there. He was eager to work on the task force—particularly since one of the victims turned out to be one of his informants. He thought he was doing a good job: coming up with suggested leads and angles. He knew some people scoffed at his suggestions of a link to Satanism, but he had found signs of what he believed was a cult in the Freetown State Forest over the years and felt it was something they needed to at least examine. He was also one of the first cops at the scene when the first body, that of Debra Medeiros of Fall River, was found in his town. With the work he had put in, Alan was stunned when he got the word he was off the task force. Why, he asked. The official answer was silence. He would later be told the district attorney’s office thought he was the leak.

  He was off the task force but he suspected he wouldn’t be off the case for long. There were a lot of places along Route 140 in Freetown where bodies might be and, as the town’s detective, he would be there first.

  THE PHONE CALLS from Kenny kept coming, even after Bob told him he was a possible suspect in the murder case, even after Kenny was arraigned in superior court on the gun charge. In the months that followed, sometimes Kenny would call Bob’s office in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. Sometimes he would call several times a week, sometimes a couple of weeks would go by without a call. The calls all had a familiar pattern: Kenny, who had been allowed to return to Florida after his arraignment, would start somewhat calmly then something, usually a question, would agitate him. Kenny would hang up abruptly. Bob didn’t worry. Kenny always called back. Bob still wasn’t sure why. Did he think something would slip? Was he hunting to see what they knew? Did he have something to
hide? It was becoming an odd, long-distance game. Bob was patient. He could wait it out.

  BRINGING IN “OUTSIDE” EXPERTS to the case was the next step for the district attorney’s office. Ron wasn’t shy about asking federal agencies or nationally known forensic experts, such as Douglas Ubelaker, for help in the past and if there was ever a case where extra help was needed, this was it. Others in the office suggested one of the FBI’s units could offer needed insights into the case.

  Jose wasn’t sure what to expect as he and Maryann sat down with the three FBI criminal profilers on January 11, 1989. The agents had met with a few members of the district attorney’s staff earlier that day and now they wanted to talk with the investigators in the field. Jose had read about the work the Behavioral Science Unit at the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime in Quantico, Virginia, was doing and he was intrigued. In theory, the unit could develop a criminal profile of a suspect by evaluating the crime, the crime scene, the victim, and the range of autopsy and police reports. The profilers could also give them suggestions on how to interview potential suspects. Details about the highway killing case had already been sent to FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP), a database created in 1985 to compare and contrast murder and other violent-crime cases. The VICAP computer system would generate a computer printout ranking the top ten matches in the database that would then be given to a crime analyst.7 In theory, if the killer from Bristol County moved on, analysts would be able to identify similarities in the slayings and hopefully identify him or her.

  The FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit had a long history in profiling work. It began profiling criminals informally in the early 1970s using crime-scene information and eventually expanded the work. The FBI profilers discovered they could see patterns in an offender’s personality by examining the crime-scene evidence, patterns that might help identify a suspect8 As part of a four-year study by the unit, thirty-six convicted killers in sex-related homicides were interviewed and provided insight into how investigators could talk with the suspects. The study found nearly 70 percent of the killers’ families had alcohol issues and a third had drug-abuse problems; half of the families had histories of psychiatric disorders and there was a history of physical abuse in 42 percent of the cases.

  It was cutting-edge social science in law enforcement, but Jose at first wasn’t sure how effective it would be. Earlier, the FBI unit had provided a verbal profile of the possible killer of a twenty-seven-year-old New Bedford woman named Dawn Copeland who was found stabbed and clubbed to death on a beach off Rogers Street in Dartmouth on June 26, 1988, after leaving a city bar. They still didn’t have a suspect under arrest. Jose had hoped that profile would have been much more precise and would have pointed directly to the killer.

  Jose personally found the profiles he had read in the Copeland and other cases he researched too general; just about any killer, once caught, could fit the descriptions. However, he also knew the criminal-profiling work couldn’t be discounted, and if there was a chance it would help the case, he was all in. Jose knew the FBI profilers interviewed dozens of offenders, including serial killers, and gained insight into how the individuals thought, how they acted, and, most importantly, how to catch them. These researchers could see the big picture. He kept that in mind as he went over the evidence with the three profilers and showed them where the women were found dead. For three days, the profilers gathered information about the case, talked with the investigators, and viewed the crime scenes. The sessions reinforced some of Jose’s thoughts and also broadened his perspective.

  In the months that followed, Jose and others in the office checked back with the unit and flew to Washington, D.C., to review the case yet again. What they learned was the killer most likely was what was classified as an “organized” killer. Robert K. Ressler, Ann W. Burgess, and John E. Douglas, in their book Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives, note that the “organized” offender generally has an average or better than average intelligence with an uneven work history at skilled jobs. He usually lives with a partner, has a good car, often is angry when committing the crime but relaxed while doing it and may be drinking alcohol.9 He often looks average, may plan the crime even if the victim is a stranger, and transports the body from the crime scene. Those considered “disorganized” may know the victim, but the scene is random and sloppy, the body is left where the killing occurs, and the person likely lives alone with a poor work history, among other things. The profile could be considered general to some, but it was designed to help those in the field understand the type of offender committing crimes—and to catch them.

  Everyone investigating the highway killings case was hoping science could hold the answer to the case if investigative shoe-leather methods couldn’t.

  ORGANIZING THOUSANDS OF PAGES of interviews and evidence in the case was becoming a daunting process. State police and local investigators met regularly to swap information, but there was always a fear some shred would get lost in a report. Was there a tiny detail that could lead to an “aha!” moment? The massive amount of collected information needed to be put in some type of order. How to do that in the late 1980s was not easy. Computer systems—when they didn’t crash—were clunky at the time, and few police officers used them to write reports. While creating a database of information was foreign to most cops, by the summer of 1989 the head of the Bristol County Drug Task Force, Louis J. Pacheco, decided that’s what was needed in the case and began hiring interns for the work.

  The interns at the district attorney’s office sat in front of the four Wang computer terminals normally used by narcotics detectives to listen to the wiretapped phones of drug dealers. For hours, these interns would input the typed and handwritten police reports, about missing women, drug crimes, attacks on women, interviews with potential witnesses, and possible suspects. The computer hard drives were purchased with confiscated drug funds and had capacities topping out at 150 to 250 megabytes—the equivalent of a third of a single CD today. Only text was entered; there was no capability for photos, and none of the computers initially “talked” to one another. Police captain Louis J. Pacheco, and two civilians, Julian Paul and intern Dan McCabe, learned to write a software program that would allow someone to search the database using keywords because nothing existed like that for the system they were using. They jerry-rigged the computers so they would share information. When they were done with the project, investigators in theory would be able to search reports for similarities in different cases to identify a possible suspect in the killings. One of the first things they needed to do, though, was upgrade the Wang computers in the office because they wouldn’t run Microsoft Word. “They were 98 percent Microsoft compatible but they didn’t tell you it was in 2 percent of every Microsoft program you would use,” Louis Pacheco said. “We changed cards in all those, we did it all ourselves, and then we bought two or three stand-alone PCs with drug-forfeiture money.10

  In this pre-Google era, it was cutting-edge computer work in local law enforcement.

  The system was the brainchild of Lou, considered the computer genius in the district attorney’s office. He was a police captain in Raynham, a bedroom community about forty minutes north of New Bedford, on loan to the Bristol County Drug Task Force. The DA’s office reimbursed the town for his salary while he was working full-time on the task force, an arrangement the prosecutor also made with other communities. The captain understood the power of computers in law enforcement in the then non-digital world and looked for ways to utilize them whenever possible. He and Julian Paul, another computer buff who ran a database for a Fall River charity, originally developed a database for the Drug Task Force to track drug investigations, initially using a $3,000 Radio Shack Tandy TRS80 with a 5-megabyte external hard drive, roughly enough memory to store two photos—or a single mp3 song—on an iPhone in 2017. “The guy told me it would be good for the rest of my life,” Lou recalled. Within 129 days, the task force needed a hard drive with more memory fo
r the drug cases.

  The first database developed by the Bristol County Task Force was used to organize information, such as telephone numbers, for investigations where wiretaps were used. The database, the detectives believed, would help identify patterns in phone calls to specific parties and help identify larger drug-dealing operations. Police would look at who was calling a drug-dealing suspect then try to identify those individuals. Were those people, and the numbers they were calling from, involved in earlier cases? It wasn’t always easy to figure out who was calling, though. “We would have telephone numbers and we would have to try to figure out how many times they called this person,” Dan McCabe, who was fresh out of high school at the time and is now a Taunton, Massachusetts, police captain, recalled. “If you did know who the person was, that was a bonus.”11

  The trio took what they learned in organizing wiretap information and expanded it to develop a database to help in the murder probe. In the first months of the highway killing investigation, massive amounts of information were being collected, and it all needed to be organized in a way investigators could use. As Lou Pacheco noted, “A lot of the reports and other information were spread out all over the place,” he recalled. “It was in all different forms. We computerized the information in a searchable database. It seems so simple now, but it really didn’t exist for us back then.”

  Data entry, however, was slow, and the captain worried that not enough information from enough law-enforcement agencies was in the system. Ideally, he wanted a wide range of reports that could be cross-referenced, such as towed trucks or descriptions of people. He would start small and build on the data. “As each case came up, they would have something to go through on the computer rather than go through it by hand,” he explained. “Let’s say if a victim was seen getting into a green car with a dented fender or something like that, then the guys could go through and search the other cases very quickly for green cars. It seems so simple now but then it was like magic.”