$350,000 TO CATCH A KILLER!
Boca Raton Town Center mall murders, update October 2009
by CHOMP
Boca Raton Town Center is one of South Florida's hottest shopping malls. It is still thriving, still busy, still enjoyed by shoppers and lookers. Christmas and Hannukah are coming soon, and the mall will be packed with gift-shoppers. No one will be thinking about the three disturbing murders that happened outside in the parking lot. You know, the killings where the killer was never identified, never caught.
The families of those murdered at this mall will not be shopping here. They still suffer from the brutal, senseless killing of their family members. They still wonder why Randi Gorenberg, Nancy Bochicchio, and her daughter Joey never came home from the mall.
Randi Gorenberg, 52, was seen leaving the mall March 2007, and she was murdered soon after. She was found at Gov. Lawton Chiles Memorial Park in suburban Delray Beach, where she was shot in the head, and dumped from her black Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle. Her Kooba purse and Puma sneakers have never been found.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office found Gorenberg's bloodstained Mercedes abandoned behind Home Depot at Jog Road and West Atlantic Avenue.
She was "thrown out of her car into the street like an animal," says her 78-year-old mother, IdeyElias. "I'm her mother. I wasn't there to protect her."
Randi's son turned to drugs after his mother's cruel death, and went to rehab. Her daughter, Sarie, is a teacher in a New York private school, and she continues her education.
August 2007, another woman was adbucted from the mall parking lot, and robbed at gunpoint with her child in the back seat. She lived. She did her best to tell the police sketch artist what the abductor looked like.
December 13, 2007, Nancy Bochicchio and her daughter Joey were abducted in the mall parking lot. The gunman took both of their lives. Mother and daughter were found bound and shot to death in their idling SUV outside the Boca Raton Town Center. The two victims were last seen on mall video entering and leaving the mall.
"My sister was always singing and dancing. She, the fourth of July, I think of her singing 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' and dancing... every month has something," says JoAnn Bruno, Nancy Bochicchio's sister.
"Sometimes I see him in faces all over," says Bruno. "What could he have done? Did he come up to her friendly-like? Was he hiding in the car? Did he just show up with a gun? What would Joey thought?" adds Bruno.
POLICE TASK FORCE FORMED...AND DISSOLVED
An investigative Task Force quickly formed to follow up on almost 1,750 leads. The investigators did their best since logging 9000 investigative hours, but the crimes have never been solved.
"The Task Force has officially been disbanded, but that doesn't mean that we are not still working the case. We are," says Officer Sandra Boonenberg, Boca Raton Police Department Spokesperson.
"Once the cases were seperated forensically, the Gorenberg and our cases, and the fact that the number of leads had, you know, over time significantly gone down, there was no practical purpose to keep the Task Force," says Boonenberg.
"Our detectives have been working with other agencies locally throughout the state, throughout the country. Anything that looks like there may be a connection, they have followed up, and there's, at this point, it looks to be unique," says Boonenberg.
Boca Raton homicide detective Jeff Clare remains on the case.
BOCA RATON TOWN CENTER SAFETY
Town Center at Boca Raton, owned by Simon Property Group, took steps to increase security.
The Boca Raton mall will offer special parking areas Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for parents and grandparents accompanying children age 12 and younger.
Over the past year and a half, new surveillance cameras have been installed on mall property, and there is now a police presence.
Simon Property Group, owners of the mall, have partnered with Crime Stoppers and other grass roots community safety organizations.
POLICE NEED TIPS
Seventeen months after Randi Gorenberg was murdered, two men used her credit card number. It was the first time anyone used her credit card number since she was murdered in March of 2007. What investigators don't know is who the men are, or whether they had Gorenberg's card or had a stolen clone of it.
The sheriff's department said the men purchased two portable Playstation hand-held game systems from the Holyoke Mall Sears, Holyoke, Mass., north of Springfield. The men also purchased food in Springfield, and a Playstation 3 from a Toys R Us in Newington, Conn.
