Conch Shell Breaks 20-Year-Old Cold-Case Murder: Police Stunned
On March 23, 2001, 41-year-old Rose Marie Moniz was found dead in her home in New Bedford, Massachusetts, by her father when he arrived to take her to a doctor’s appointment. According to a statement released by Bristol…
On March 23, 2001, 41-year-old Rose Marie Moniz was found dead in her home in New Bedford, Massachusetts, by her father when he arrived to take her to a doctor’s appointment.
According to a statement released by Bristol County District Attorney’s Office and District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III, when the father arrived he found kitchen items all over the floor, Moniz’s purse contents strewn about and money missing from her wallet.
Moniz was found in the bathroom, lying in a pool of blood. She appeared to have been beaten with a conch shell, a fireplace poker and a cast-iron kettle. An autopsy showed skull fractures, broken nasal bones, a broken cheekbone, multiple lacerations and bleeding from her ears, as well as signs of blunt-force trauma all over her body.
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There were no signs of forced entry, and the trail went cold.
Two years later, in June 2003, another woman in New Bedford, Massachusetts, was attacked, robbed and nearly beaten to death with a tire iron. Maribel Martinez-Alegria was found by a good Samaritan after she’d been attacked and pushed out of her attacker’s truck into a dark alley.
The next month, Alegria spotted the same attacker in his truck repeatedly driving past her house, so she alerted family and authorities. Her nephew and five others jumped into a minivan and tracked the truck down, following him even as he tried to lose them.