DA Quinn Expanding Cold Case Unit To Review Bristol County Missing Persons Cases From The Past Five Decades
BRISTOL COUNTY MISSING PERSON PROJECT
Bristol County District Attorney Tom Quinn’s Cold Case Unit announced today that it is further expanding its scope to include a group of “Missing Persons” who have vanished without a trace during the past 50 years.
The Cold Case Unit is actively reviewing missing person cases in conjunction with its efforts to identify all unidentified bodies, another initiative that was announced earlier this summer. Many individuals have been missing for many years without any details of what happened to them. Although there are many circumstances where individuals go missing where no criminal circumstances are involved, it is important that any individual can be accounted for to rule out concerns by law enforcement authorities, and provide answers to family members.
District Attorney Quinn’s Cold Case Unit has been very successful in bringing charges in homicide and violent sexual assaults cases dating back more than 30 years. Most recently, District Attorney Quinn announced the indictment of David Reed for the 2001 cold case homicide of his half-sister, Rose Marie Moniz, in New Bedford. The indictment was returned as a result of an extensive re-examination of evidence in the case by District Attorney Quinn’s Cold Case Unit. And just last year, our Cold Case Unit secured a conviction against serial rapist, Ivan Keith, who brutally accosted, assaulted and raped at least four women during the 1990s. In early 2019, the Cold Case Unit reviewed the series rapes in an attempt to develop new leads that might lead to the identification of the person responsible for these heinous crimes, which we believed were connected. Recognizing that no identification had been made in the more than 20 years since the crimes occurred, investigators explored new technologies that combined the available DNA evidence with genetic genealogy. As a result of their extensive investigation, Keith was identified as the chief suspect in a series of cold case rapes, was tracked down to Maine and was apprehended. He is now spending the rest of his life in state prison. The Cold Case Unit has also solved several other cold case homicides and rapes from throughout Bristol County.
The use of the latest forensic technologies involving DNA and genetic genealogy has provided investigators with additional tools to assist in our new Missing Persons Project and our previously announced Unidentified Bodies Project. Ongoing efforts are being undertaken to not only identify unidentified bodies but also to develop a DNA profile for missing persons so that it can be used, even many years later, to assist in identifying a missing person.
“Finding missing persons and unidentified bodies is part of our ongoing Cold Case initiative. We are trying to locate each and every one of these missing persons in order to bring some closure to families and friends who have been searching for their loved ones for years. It is also likely that in some of these cases, people have gone missing as a result of foul play and criminal conduct. At the heart of our mission is bringing justice to victims. That is why we are now expanding our ‘cold case’ efforts into new frontiers,” District Attorney Quinn said. “Our Cold Case Unit has been successful in solving multiple cold case homicides and previously unsolved violent sexual assaults. The unit is now expanding its efforts to focus onmissing persons andunidentifiedremains. If anyone has any information related to these cases, please contact us.”
District Attorney Quinn has prioritized this initiative along with the Cold Case Unit’s efforts on unsolved murders, rapes and other violent crimes. The Cold Case Unit is working with the local police, Massachusetts State Police Unresolved Unit and other law enforcement partners to provide the latest technology and forensic testing to identify unidentified bodies and human remains found in Bristol County, some of whom are homicide victims. The District Attorney’s Office has enlisted the help of nationally recognized agencies and labs who specialize in using the most modern forensic technologies for identification of human remains including genetic genealogical DNA testing. These agencies include the FBI, NamUs, the University of North Texas for Human Identification, The Doe Project, Season of Justice and Othram laboratories whose expertise and resources bring hope that these individuals can finally be identified.
Attached to this email is a list of some of the individuals who have gone missing in Bristol County over the last 50 years. As some of these individuals have gone missing under suspicious circumstances, the Bristol District Attorney’s Office, working with the Massachusetts State Police Unresolved Unit and local police departments across the county, are appealing to anyone with any information regarding any of these missing person cases to please reach out to Massachusetts State Police Lt. Ann Marie Robertson at (508) 961-1918 or email Lt. Robertson at AnnMarie.Robertson@pol.state.ma.us.
Massachusetts State Police can also be contacted directly at (855) MA-SOLVE (855-627-6583) or by email at mspunresolved@pol.state.ma.us
If you feel more comfortable submitting an anonymous tip on one of these bodies, we have made it easy for you to do so in two different ways. The first way to submit an anonymous tip is via our text-a-tip program. To anonymously text a tip to us, text the word “Bristol” to the phone number CRIMES (274637). Then just text us your tip. You can also submit a web-based anonymous tip by going to Submit a Web Tip. These tip programs are completely anonymous and your personal information will never be seen by our investigators or anyone else.
To review all the cold cases we are currently investigating, the unidentified bodies or remains we are actively seeking to identify and the missing persons we are working to locate, go to:
http://bristolda.com/prosecution/unsolved-cases/
http://bristolda.com/unidentified_body/
http://bristolda.com/prosecution/unsolved-cases/missing-persons/
Contact:
Gregg Miliote
Director of Communications
774-292-9576