Patricia Moreno.Photo:The Middlesex District Attorney’s Office
The Middlesex District Attorney’s Office
Last week, a man was convicted in the cold case slaying of a Massachusetts girl whose body he left on a fire escape more than three decades ago.
On July 20, 1991, police responded to a third-floor apartment in Malden, Mass., where they found Moreno with a single gunshot wound to the head. She had been living there with her foster mother, the mother’s two teenage daughters, and the older daughter’s boyfriend, Daniels.
When officers arrived, they found Moreno alone, face down, on the third-floor fire escape landing. She was taken to a local hospital, where she died a short time later after suffering an irreversible brain injury as a result of the gunshot wound, according to the D.A.’s office.
An autopsy determined that the bullet found in Moreno’s body had been fired from a .38 caliber gun, yet neither the weapon or cartridge casings were ever recovered from the scene. There was also no sign of forced entry at the apartment.
The case eventually went cold because police said they could not find sufficient evidence to make an arrest.
The witness, who had been out of the U.S. for some time, gave investigators a physical description of the man, which matched Daniels' appearance.
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According to the D.A.’s office, investigators also learned a witness had protected Daniels in 1991. She claimed Daniels told her that he killed Moreno and hid the murder weapon inside an armchair before disposing of it.
The alibi witness, who is now deceased, “had said that, even many years later, she was afraid to disclose what she knew because she feared that admitting her complicity in the cover-up would expose her to prosecution.”
The new information allowed authorities to obtain an arrest warrant for Daniels, who was taken into custody at his Georgia home in September 2021. He was eventually brought back to Massachusetts to face trial for murder.
Rodney Daniels.CBS Boston/Youtube
CBS Boston/Youtube
“When a family loses a loved one in a homicide, even the passage of time never fully heals that wound,” District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement. “That is especially true when they do not have answers about what happened and no one has been held accountable. Those who knew and loved Tricia have been waiting over three decades for answers.”
“When I created our Cold Case Unit it was my hope that we would be able to get to these resolutions,” she added. “These older cases present substantial challenges and require relentless investigative work and dedicated resources.”
It’s unclear when Daniels will be sentenced. According toMassachusetts state law,people convicted of first-degree murder face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
source: people.com
