DAS crack some of state’s oldest crimes
Suffolk, Middlesex prosecutors dedicate resources to cold cases
If you think you noticed a lot of cold cases being solved recently, it’s not your imagination.
Renewed efforts by the Middlesex and Suffolk DA’S to solve some of the state’s most stubborn crimes have led to breakthroughs in a half-dozen decades-old cold cases in the past two years.
“What I said I was going to do was clean up my house as the DA,” said Suffolk County DA Rachael Rollins of cold case initiative by her office. “I said, ‘We are going to get all hands on deck, we are going to have every employee in my office invested in potentially doing an administrative review of older unsolved homicides.’”
Prosecutors in Suffolk and Middlesex DA’S offices have achieved major breakthroughs in six cold cases in the past two years, with each office marking major progress in 3 cases since launching renewed efforts in 2019.
Rollins reallocated resources toward PUSH,
which stands for Project for Unsolved Suffolk Homicides, in early 2019, after hearing stories on the campaign trail from families who had lost a loved one in a case that had gone cold.
“Knocking on doors in
certain neighborhoods, there were too many people, overwhelmingly moms, sometimes widows, telling me that their loved one was murdered, and they hadn’t heard anything from my office in five, 10, 15, sometimes 20 or more
years,” she said. “It just seemed awful to have experienced a homicide, and to go through that trauma, and then not to ever hear from our office again.”
The Suffolk DA directed her staff to begin a review of over 1,300 cases on file
since 1960, taking them up in batches over a few months, and then present their findings to an internal committee.
So far, the staff has reviewed over 200 cases and made indictments in three, with at least 10 others in advanced investigative stages.
“We are dealing with people that believe they got away with this. And we will never forget, we will never stop,“Rollins said.
Staff achieved breakthroughs in three cases including Wendy Dansereau, who was killed in Boston in 1980; Jorge Medina, who was killed in Dorchester in 1995; and,
most recently, Judy Chamberlain, who’s body was discovered in a Seaport basement in 1988.
Middlesex DA Marian Ryan also recently achieved a major breakthrough, announcing earlier this month that Judy Chartier’s remains and car had been found in the Concord River in Billerica after 39 years, using sonar technology.
Her office also created a Cold Case Unit in 2019. The unit has also recently had breakthroughs in the 1991 Malden case of Patricia Moreno and the 1969 Cambridge murder of Jane Britton, among others.
Ryan credited the breakthroughs to three factors: technology including advances in DNA and sonar; a change in circumstances over time, like a divorce allowing someone to come forward with new information; and fresh eyes, allowing people to look at existing information in new ways.
A big part of her unit’s work, she said, was poring over old handwritten police reports, searching for new ways to analyze the case.
“If we were looking at this today … was there some blood typing, which is what used to be the limit of what we could do, that
we could expand on and we might be able to get DNA from now?” she said.
Given that the area is “one of the greatest technology hubs in the world,” she said, “we should be taking advantage of everything that is out there.”
Ryan’s office has partnered with MIT and other universities to experiment with technological advances that could crack old cases.
She acknowledged that the process is difficult, with hundreds more dead ends than conclusions.
“We’re always thinking and looking and conscious of families’ desire … to come to a conclusion,” she said. “Sometimes those efforts are not successful, but that does not mean we are not making (progress) at those efforts, because we understand how critical that is.”
Rollins credits much of the success in her office to the decision to reallocate resources away from lowlevel, nonviolent crimes, which took up 80% of prosecutors’ time. Many times, she said, the people charged with those crimes, which are often dismissed, are the same people who have been impacted by cold cases.
“I heard what people wanted, and they wanted their unsolved homicides solved, and I knew that that would take resources and time,” she said.