New Bedford Highway Killer | |
---|---|
Details | |
Victims | 11 |
Span of crimes | March 1988 –April 1989 |
Country | United States |
State(s) | New Bedford, Massachusetts |
Date apprehended | Unapprehended |
The New Bedford Highway Killer is an unidentified serial killer responsible for the deaths of at least nine women and the disappearances of two additional women in New Bedford, Massachusetts, between March 1988 and April 1989. [1] The killer is also suspected to have assaulted numerous other women. All the killer's victims were known sex workers or had struggles with addiction. While the victims were taken from New Bedford, they were all found in different surrounding towns, including Dartmouth, Freetown and Westport, Massachusetts, along Route 140. The main detective that pursued the case was John Dextradeur. [2]
In May 1989, Anthony DeGrazia, a 26-year-old construction worker’s picture was presented to a locally known New Bedford sex worker in the Weld Square area of New Bedford Massachusetts. One of the sex workers by the name of Margret Medeiros was shown a picture of DeGrazia. Medeiros describes her assailant as having a boxer like build with a flat nose, however, she never identified DeGrazia as a positive suspect, only stating to the detective that he looked like the man who tried to choke her. Medeiros 22 years old then, was brought before a secret grand jury to testify about her attacker. She stated to the grand jury that DeGrazia looked like the man who attacked her and tried to choke her.
DeGrazia was later picked up for questioning and brought before the secret grand jury but was never indicted. Later, the District Attorney Ronald Pina asked the court judge for a warrant for DeGrazia's arrest accusing him of allegedly 17 attempted rapes and assaults on several other sex workers in the Weld Street area. After DeGrazia was notified about the warrant for his arrest, he and his Defense Attorney, Edward Harrington Esq. of New Bedford (no relation to the presiding Judge on the case) surrendered to the courts. DeGrazia was then arrested, and formally charged with these allegations of 17 rapes and assaults.
The Judge presiding over the case, (Judge, Edward Harrington) set DeGrazia's bail at $180,000.00 dollars and a one million dollar surety bond. DeGrazia, not being able to make this bail, would spend the next 13 months in the county jail on these allegations brought against him by the District Attorney Ronald Pina. DeGrazia would have 18 court appearances during his 13 months of incarceration in the county jail. DeGrazia's Defense Attorney filed 18 motions before the court for the production documents of evidence including a request for a bail reduction because of the lack of evidence being produced against DeGrazia by the District Attorney's office. Each motion was continually denied by the presiding Judge.
Finally DeGrazia fired Harrington and hired a Boston Attorney by the name of Robert A. George Esq. Attorney George filed a contempt on the District Attorney's office for non production of evidence and the Judge had no choice but to lower DeGrazia's bail.
DeGrazia was finally released from jail on June 27, 1990. Immediately after DeGrazia was released on bail he was rearrested for allegedly uttering threats to the DA Ronald Pina for wrongful prosecution and imprisonment. DeGrazia again posted bond, and was re-released. DeGrazia was later found dead one month after his release on July 17, 1990. DeGrazia's body was found at his ex-girlfriend's parents house in Freetown. He was found lying face down under a picnic table in their back yard. His death was ruled a homicide by Freetown Police who first arrived on the scene. However, the District Attorney's Office later ruled his death a suicide. The autopsy report does not support this decision made by the district Attorney's office. The autopsy report ruled DeGrazia's death a homicide. DeGrazia's death came immediately after a Special Prosecutor released Kenneth Ponte as the prime suspect in the serial murder investigation.
Authorities stated in a public broadcast that it was a timely thing that DeGrazia took his own life after being made aware that he was now being considered the number one prime suspect in connection to the New Bedford highway serial murders. Later this statement made against DeGrazia by the states Special Prosecutor Paul Buckley was retracted by the D.A's office. The family of DeGrazia believes Anthony DeGrazia was murdered. DeGrazia's mother files a federal lawsuit against the District Attorney's office naming Ronald Pina reference; https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-1st-circuit/1104350.html No evidence was ever found linking Anthony DeGrazia to any of the 17 rapes or assaults he was charged with by the District Attorney Ronald Pina. Also, there has never been any evidences produced by the District Attorney's office connecting Anthony DeGrazia to any of the unsolved highway serial murders in New Bedford.
In August 1990, a grand jury indicted New Bedford attorney Kenneth Ponte, 40, in the murder of Rochelle Clifford Dopierala, who had been beaten to death. Ponte had a checkered past, including drug use and a prior incident involving Dopierala. Bristol County District Attorney Ronald Pina suggested that Ponte had murdered Dopierala because she was allegedly planning to expose his drug activities.
Dopierala's mother stated that her daughter had once given her telephone number to Ponte in the event she needed to be reached. Ponte admitted to having represented Dopierala in April 1988, shortly before she disappeared, when she accused another man of raping her.
Ponte moved to Port Richey, Florida, in September 1988. He was arraigned on a single count of murder on August 17, 1990. Ponte entered a plea of "absolutely not guilty" and posted a $50,000 bond. On July 29, 1991, the district attorney dropped murder charges against Ponte, citing lack of evidence. The following year, remaining drug and assault charges were dropped and the New Bedford case went cold.
Ponte resurfaced in the news in May 2009 in two separate incidents. Police dug up the driveway and patio of Ponte's former New Bedford home with a backhoe, but were unable to find evidence linking Ponte to any crime. [4] On the morning of May 15, Ponte was arrested for shoplifting and was found with four cans of sardines and a block of cheese stolen from a PriceRite store in New Bedford. On January 27, 2010, Ponte was found dead in his New Bedford home. The Bristol County District Attorney's office has discounted foul play as a cause of death. [5]
While in prison for the murder of his mother, Daniel Thomas Tavares Jr. sent a threatening letter to one of the prison staff indirectly claiming responsibility for the Highway Killings. He lived in New Bedford, and had knowledge of where another murdered woman, Gayle Botelho, had been buried, within a mile from his home. He was convicted of two recent killings, those of Brian and Bev Muack. [6] [7] In 2015, he was convicted of the murder of Gayle Botelho. [8]
Between 1992 and 1993, three sex workers were slain and disemboweled with an instrument that was not a knife in Lisbon, Portugal, by an unknown serial killer that was dubbed the Lisbon Ripper, while two further sex workers were shot dead on the opposite shore of the Tagus river in the same time period. [9] In March 1993, two detectives of the Portuguese Policia Judiciaria traveled to New Bedford to gather information on the Highway killings, while two agents of the FBI traveled to Lisbon, [10] following a hypothesis that the string of crimes on both sides of the Atlantic could have been committed by the same individual. New Bedford has a sizable Portuguese community and many of the Highway victims were of Portuguese ancestry. [11] The Lisbon murders were also linked to four similar killings that took place in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and the Czech Republic (all countries bordering Germany) between 1993 and 1997, the theory being that the Lisbon Ripper had then become a long-haul truck driver. [12]
In 2011, a 21-year-old man named Joel applied to participate in the Portuguese edition of the reality show Secret Story , where participants try to guess each other's secrets while concealing their own. The secret he applied with was that his father, José Pedro Guedes, was the Lisbon Ripper. Guedes, 46, was arrested and confessed to the three slayings, but could not be prosecuted because murder has a prescription period of 15 years in Portugal and the last murder's had ended in 2008. Guedes could still be prosecuted for the 2000 murder of a prostitute in Aveiro, Portugal and similar murders in Germany (or neighboring countries) where Guedes resided in the 1990s. [13] It is unknown however, if Guedes ever resided in the United States. Guedes was tried for the Aveiro murder in 2013, found not proven due to lack of evidence.
Gary Leon Ridgway is an American serial killer known as the Green River Killer. He was initially convicted of 48 separate murders committed between the early 1980s and late 1990s. As part of his plea bargain, another conviction was added, bringing the total number of convictions to 49, making him the second most prolific serial killer in United States history according to confirmed murders.
Henry Lee Lucas, also known as The Confession Killer, was an American convicted murderer. Lucas was convicted of murdering his mother in 1960 and two others in 1983. He rose to infamy as a claimed serial killer while incarcerated for these crimes when he falsely confessed to approximately six hundred other murders to Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officials. Many unsolved cases were closed based on the confessions and the murders officially attributed to Lucas. Lucas was convicted of murdering eleven people and condemned to death for a single case with a then-unidentified victim, later identified as Debra Jackson.
William Lester Suff, also known as The Riverside Prostitute Killer and The Lake Elsinore Killer, is an American serial killer.
Steven Brian Pennell, known as The Route 40 Killer, was Delaware's only known serial killer in modern history, convicted of the murders of two New Castle County, Delaware women and suspected of killing three others. He abducted most of his victims from U.S. Route 40, near Bear.
The Lisbon Ripper was an unidentified serial killer who, between 1992 and 1993 murdered three prostitutes in Lisbon, Portugal.
Robert Joseph "Bobby Joe" Long was an American serial killer and rapist who was executed by the state of Florida for the murder of Michelle Denise Simms. Long abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered at least ten women in the Tampa Bay area in Florida during an eight-month period in 1984. He released 17-year-old Lisa McVey after 26 hours. McVey provided critical information to the police that enabled them to arrest Long.
Derrick Todd Lee, also known as The Baton Rouge Serial Killer, was an American serial killer. Between 1992 and 2003, Lee murdered seven women in the Baton Rouge area.
Lonnie David Franklin Jr., better known by the nickname Grim Sleeper, was an American serial killer who was responsible for at least ten murders and one attempted murder in Los Angeles, California from 1984 to 2007. He was also convicted for rape and sexual violence. Franklin earned his nickname when he appeared to have taken a 14-year break from his crimes, from 1988 to 2002.
Rodney James Alcala was an American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979, receiving an additional sentence of 25 years to life after pleading guilty to two further homicides committed in New York State in 1971 and 1977. While he has been conclusively linked to eight murders, Alcala's true number of victims remains unknown and could be much higher – authorities believe the actual number is as high as 130.
The Gilgo Beach serial killings were a series of killings between 1996 and 2011 in which the remains of 11 people were found in Gilgo Beach, located on the South Shore of Long Island, New York, United States. Most of the known victims were sex workers who advertised on Craigslist. The perpetrator in the case is known as the Long Island Serial Killer (LISK).
The Flat-Tire murders were a series of unsolved murders in Broward and Miami-Dade Counties, Florida, occurring between February 1975 and January 1976. The name originated from the investigators' belief that, when the offender committed two of the murders, he had deflated the tires of the victims' cars. The list of suspected victims ultimately included twelve girls and women whose bodies were discovered in or near South Florida canals. The murders were the subject of a 2021 book entitled The Flat Tire Murders: Unsolved Crimes of a South Florida Serial Killer.
Joseph Naso, also known as Crazy Joe or the Double Initial Killer, is an American serial killer and serial rapist sentenced to death for the murders of four women. He was also implicated in the murders of other women.
Darren Deon Vann is an American serial killer. He was arrested on October 18, 2014, for the murder of 19-year-old Afrikka Hardy at a Motel 6 in Hammond, Indiana and has confessed to the murders of six other female victims in Indiana. He led police to those women's bodies, all of which were found in five abandoned structures in Gary, Indiana.
Sid Ahmed Rezala was an Algerian-born French serial killer, dubbed "The Killer of the Trains". He was suspected of killing at least three women in 1999. Arrested in Portugal in early 2000, he confessed the murders to a reporter from the Figaro Magazine. Several weeks later, he killed himself before he could be extradited to France. He died of asphyxiation after he intentionally set fire to the mattress in his cell while his prison guards were watching football on TV.
Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 women between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.
Sonya Caleffi is an Italian serial killer. She was suspected of killing 15 to 18 people and convicted of five of them.
Lyndon Fitzgerald Pace is an American serial killer and burglar. Between 1988 and 1989, he robbed and killed elderly women primarily in Atlanta's Vine City neighborhood. Among his burglary victims was Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow. Pace was convicted of four murders, but was not tried for a fifth, and was sentenced to death for his crimes.
Dr. No is the nickname given to a suspected American serial killer thought to be responsible for the murders of at least nine women and girls in Ohio, between 1981 and 1990. As victims, he primarily chose prostitutes working in parking lots and truck stops located alongside Interstate 71. There are suspicions that he committed three similar killings in New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania, between 1986 and 1988. In 2019, Dr No was identified as Samuel Legg III using familial DNA to link him to the crime.
Anthony Joe LaRette Jr. was an American serial killer and rapist. Convicted of one murder in St. Charles, Missouri in 1980, he later confessed to thirty-one murders in eleven states dating back to the late 1960s, fifteen of which were closed based on information provided by him. Sentenced to death for his sole conviction, LaRette was executed in 1995.