Finally, answers

Since 2019, both Suffolk and Middlesex counties have had dedicated cold case units working some of the state’s most stubborn, and decadesold, cold cases. Here’s a list of the ones they’ve cracked:

Suffolk County

Jorge Medina: The 20-year-old was a bouncer at a Dorchester party in 1995 when he was allegedly shot and killed by William Sanchez of the Dominican Republic, whom Medina had kicked out of the party minutes earlier. He was arraigned in November 2019.

Wendy Dansereau: She was 19 in March 1980 when she was raped and killed in a South End hote l room. Suffolk used DNA evidence and police reports to charge Steven Fike with the rape and homicide in December 2019. Fike is currently serving a sentence in Alabama for a 1982 rape and murder.

Judy Chamberlain: The 21-year-old was sexually assaulted and murdered in 1988 in the basement of the former Fargo building in Boston. DNA, as well as new evidence that allegedly placed Richard Vega in the building at the time, led to his charge with her murder in October 2021. Vega is civilly committed in the state from a 1987 attack on an elderly Revere woman.

Middlesex County

Jane Britton: She was 23 and a Harvard gradu

ate student when she was sexually assaulted and killed in her Cambridge apartment in 1969. Middlesex used DNA evidence to charge “career criminal” Michael Sumpter with her death in November 2018. Since his 2001 death, DNA has linked him to five sexual assaults, three of which ended in murder.

Patricia Moreno: Moreno, 17, was living in Malden with her foster family when she was shot in the head and killed.

Rodney Daniels, her foster mother’s daughter’s boyfriend, was arrested in September 2021 for her death after a neighbor who was re-interviewed described seeing him that night.

Judy Chartier: Chartier was 17 when she disappeared after a Billerica party in 1982. Earlier this month, civilian experts used sonar technology to locate her remains, car and other personal items deep in the Concord River in Billerica. The DA’S of

fice is now working to determine her cause of death.

Boston Herald File middlesex district attorney marian ryan speaks during a news conference announcing the suspected murderer of Jane britton, who was killed in cambridge in 1969, on nov. 20, 2018, in Woburn.

Matt stone / boston Herald File christian melendez is comforted by his mother, dimarys melendez, as he tears up and shakes as William sanchez is arraigned for his father Jorge medina's murder in 1995, at suffolk superior court on nov. 25, 2019, in boston

moreno

medina

Fike