Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
A plea for help on unsolved murders
Families seek leads in deaths of 2 Boca-area women
The heartbreak of not having answers in the killings of two Boca-area women united two families Thursday.
Cynthia Moffett was found dead 11 years ago, and Randi Gorenberg was found slain on the same day 10 years ago. On the anniversary of the murders, the women’s relatives joined Palm Beach sheriff ’s investigators to urge the public for help solving the cases.
“It never gets easier,” said Moffett’s sister, Julie Moffett Coker, during a news conference at the Sheriff ’s Office, “but we’re never giving up hope.”
Even though the killings happened on the same day a year apart, investigators don’t think the murders are related.
Moffett was found shot dead near the Lake Worth golf course where she worked on March 23, 2006. Gorenberg’s body was found at a park in West Delray in 2007.
Investigators and the women’s relatives marked the passing of another year with leads but no answers. “I know somebody out there knows something,” said Detective William Springer, the lead investigator on Gorenberg’s case. “Come forward and do the right thing.”
Moffett, a 52-year-old from Boca Raton, was found dead just outside the Forest Oaks Golf Club, at 144 Lucerne Lakes Boulevard in Lake Worth.
She was killed in what deputies believe was an armed robbery at the golf club. The killer or killers got away with $300 in rolled coins.
Patti Shrum, one of Moffett’s younger sisters, said she still feels her sister’s presence sometimes, like when “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt plays on the radio. She said it was one of Moffett’s favorite songs.
“She was a lot of fun,” she said Thursday. “I really miss laughing with her.”
Moffett’s relatives haven’t given up hope, they said. One of her sisters, Debbie Moffett Muller, said she goes to sleep every night wondering if someone might come forward with information the following day.
“Our family is steadfast and we have confidence and faith in the Sheriff ’s Office,” Julie Moffett Coker said.
On March 23, 2007, authorities found Gorenberg’s body at Governor Lawton Chiles Memorial Park, on Jog Road south of Linton Boulevard in West Delray Beach.
Deputies determined Gorenberg, a 52-year-old mother who lived in West Boca, was at the Town Center at Boca Raton mall about 30 minutes earlier before a witness saw her being shoved out of her car at the park.
Her Mercedes-Benz was found abandoned at a Home Depot two miles north of the park at Jog Road and Atlantic Avenue.
Springer said he can assume Gorenberg was a victim of a carjacking gone bad.
Gorenberg’s mother, Idey Elias, spoke Thursday and begged someone to come forward.
“She was everything,” she said. “She was the best thing that ever happened to me, and we were best friends.”
Elias is convinced that someone had to have seen her daughter get into her SUV that Friday.
“Anybody that remembers anything, please, clear your conscience,” she said.
Springer and the lead investigator on Moffett’s case, Detective Jeff Weissman, said they have followed up on numerous leads in the past 10 and 11 years. But what they are missing is a name, Springer said.
Rewards are offered for information that leads to the killers: $25,000 in Moffett’s case and $15,000 in Gorenberg’s.
“You have a murderer out there walking among you,” Springer said. “He could be at the Town Center Mall, or he could be standing next to you. You never know who his next target might be.”