Boca PD now has a cold case website for public viewing - Sun Sentinel
Boca Raton
The Police Department's cold case unit is looking for help from web surfers who also may be valuable witnesses.
Its three-man detective unit, formed last year, has launched a website featuring some of the 25 cases its reviewing, dating as far back as 1948. The website provides details of each case and a photo of the victim. Detectives want a tip that will put them back on the trail of suspects in unsolved homicides and other cases.
"It could be a witness who was unwilling to provide information at the time. But as we get older, people change, and their way of thinking changes," Detective Mynor Cruz said. "You'd be surprised how many cases there are where we have a witness years later who says, 'I never told anyone what I saw but I don't want to die with this in my conscience.'"
Boca Raton got the idea from the Denver Police Department's cold-case website. Since 2008, Denver detectives said, their site has provided about a dozen tips, although it has yet to lead to an arrest.
"It helps keep cases alive and we feel that it's a tribute to the surviving family members." Denver police Sgt. Tony Parisi said. "With mobile devices and access to worldwide web, we're increasing our witness pool."
Boca Raton's most infamous cold case in recent years was reported Dec. 12, 2007. Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year-old daughter, Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, were found shot to death in their SUV at the Town Center mall.
They were bound with plastic ties and handcuffs and at least one of them was wearing blacked-out swim goggles. Detectives discovered the two had been abducted, taken to an ATM and forced to take out $500.
The oldest case currently on the website is the 1981 homicide of Chuck Deane.
On Dec. 28, 1981, Deane left a Fort Lauderdale gay nightclub, telling a friend he was tired and going home. Deane, 28, left the club alone.
Later that night a neighbor heard loud music coming from Deane's apartment, in the 1700 block of Northwest 15th Vista. Just before midnight a neighbor knocked on the door and asked Deane to turn the music down, which he did, police said. The neighbor told investigators she thought someone else was in the apartment.
That was the last time Deane was seen alive, police said.
Four days later on Jan. 1, 1982 the friend found Deane's bloody body with a knife lying next to him on the floor of his apartment. He was stabbed nearly 20 times in the chest, neck and head, police said, and had a fractured skull from a beating.
The advent of DNA in police work allows cases such as Deane's to be reviewed, police said.
As an example, detectives point to a 1989 cold case they solved last year.
John McKenzie, 60, of Boynton Beach, was arrested in September 2010, for attacking a woman and raping her in an apartment in the 1900 block of Northwest Fourth Avenue.
In March 1989, he sliced off a woman's bathing-suit top, sliced her hand and raped her. Investigators collected DNA evidence, but technology didn't exist at the time to identify him.
In March, , McKenzie was convicted of sexual battery and sentenced to life in prison. Recent DNA tests linked him to another Boca rape case from 1987, resulting in additional sexual-battery charges against him, police said.
Solving cold cases, no matter how old, still is important, the detectives said.
"We stand up for the rights of the victim," Sgt. Steven Meyer said. "It doesn't matter whether you have family or not, we're still going to work as hard to put the criminals behind bars."
To view Boca Raton's cold cases, visit jjburdi@tribune.com">http://www.ci.boca-raton.fl.us/police/coldcase.shtm.
jjburdi@tribune.com or 561-243-6531
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