Woman sentenced in case of hidden body

Burrillville woman pleads no contest to charges she aided boyfriend in killing and burying Worcester man

BURRILLVILLE – Michelle Morin, a Burrillville woman who along with her boyfriend, Steven Pietrowicz, was charged in connection with the 2015 killing of 60year-old Domingo Ortiz of Worcester, will serve 20 years in prison for her role in the murder.

Morin was sentenced Thursday by Superior Court Judge Susan E. McGuirl after she pleaded no contest to conspiring to commit assault with a dangerous weapon, two counts of felony assault, and failure to report a death in the May 2015 killing of Ortiz, whose body was found under newly poured concrete at the couple’s home in Nasonville. In exchange for her plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss a murder charge.

In October of 2015, Morin and Pietrowicz, both of

Burrillville, as well as Denise Walker and Corey Bickhardt, both of Pennsylvania, were indicted in connection with the killing. According to prosecutors, Morin and Pietrowicz met with Ortiz in Worcester and traveled back to Morin’s Burrillville home on Douglas Pike, where Walker and Bickhardt were staying at the time.

Burrillville police say there was some type of altercation during a night of drinking on May 5 that led to both Pietrowicz and Morin beating Ortiz repeatedly. The next day, Pietrowicz and Bickhardt strangled Ortiz to death and disposed of his body in a hand-dug grave beneath a recently built exterior. The four- to five-foot grave was then covered with a layer of concrete several inches thick.

Police initially searched the Burrillville home on May 21, while it was still a missing person case. But it wasn’t until after Rhode Island investigators traveled to Pennsylvania to interview Bickhardt and Walker that police returned to the property with a second search warrant to dig up the cement under which Ortiz was eventually found.

Police used shovels, rakes, chains saws, surveying tools and, later, jackhammers, which they used to smash their way through the cement, about four to five inches thick.

Ortiz was described by family members as “a sweet, loving, hardworking, family man” who had six children and 15 grandchildren.

Walker was charged with one count of failure to report a death. Pietrowicz and Bickhardt have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.