South Florida
Media Coverage
*~ December, 2007 -- Page 4 ~*
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| In Loving Memory Of |
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Shoppers, Experts Raise Concerns
About Valet Lots (12/20/07)
Mall Slayings Take Us Out Of Our Comfort Zone (12/20/07)
Slain Mother, Child Mourned By Friends in West Boca (12/20/07)
Police Locate Second Person of Interest in Boca Mall Murders
(12/20/07)
Funeral Service Ends For Boca Mall Murder Victims (12/20/07)
Hundreds of Mourners Pay Respects To Slain Mother and Daughter
(12/20/07)
Police Question Second Man in Boca Mall Killings (12/20/07)
Eerie Similarities Between Mall Abduction and Later Killings
(12/20/07)
Being Safe At The Mall? Just Can't Buy That Anymore (12/20/07)
Police Turn To Earlier Sketch in Boca Killings (12/20/07)
Shoppers, experts raise concerns about valet lots
By ALEXANDRA CLOUGH
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 20, 2007
BOCA RATON - Jane Salimbene did something on Sunday she's never done before: She paid $4 to valet park at the Town Center mall during an afternoon shopping trip with daughter Alessia, 11.
Last week's discovery of a slain woman and child outside Sears led Salimbene to change how she parks at the mall. And security experts say it should prompt Simon Property Group, the mall's owner, to change how it configures its parking lots.
The biggest problem: Valet and self-parking lots are set up directly outside five mall or department store entrances, forcing shoppers who want free parking to walk the farthest. The inherent dangers are particularly acute for mothers with small children.
"One of the most dangerous times is when you're putting your child in a car seat," said Rosemary Erickson, a security consultant with Athena Research Corp. in Sioux Falls, S.D..
Salimbene, 52, of suburban Boca Raton, used to hunt for parking spaces in the lots around the Sears. She's afraid to do that now. She also is irked about the lack of free parking close to the entrances. Even a self-parking lot near the main entrance on Glades Road charges $3.
"Why should you have to valet to feel safe?" Salimbene said.
The deaths last week of Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her 7-year-old daughter, Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, coupled with an August abduction of a woman and her child at the mall, have spooked many shoppers, especially women. More than ever, they want to park near an entrance rather than in a far-off parking lot.
But the valet lots limit their options.
"It upsets me that valets take up all the close spaces," said Judit Espina, 37, of Boca Raton, who has a daughter the same age as Joey. "I don't want to be forced to pay to park my car. But I do want the option of parking closer - now, even more so."
Valet is upscale expectation
In tony sections of South Florida, upscale residents are used to valet parking at restaurants or country clubs, said Al Ferris, leasing manager of The Gardens mall in Palm Beach Gardens. And Town Center, like The Gardens, has an impressive roster of luxury retailers catering to the wealthiest shoppers.
But unlike The Gardens, which has one valet stand and only about 50 to 100 valet spaces outside the restaurants at the mall, Town Center mall crams valet spaces as close as possible to several entrances.
Ferris frowned on the practice of forcing people to pay to park near a mall entrance, likening it to having "a- pay toilet."
Dorian Zimmer, general manager at the Mall at Wellington Green, said 100 of the 7,600 parking spaces are set aside for valet. All are near the food court entrance.
She agreed that valet parking has become an expected amenity at upscale malls such as Wellington Green but added, "We wanted to leave a lot of spaces near the entrances for customers that chose not to valet park."
Mall officials have noted an increase in demand for valet parking, which she attributed both to holiday shoppers and concerns about the incident at Town Center.
Simon Property Group, owner of Town Center, declined to comment about the mall parking situation, mall spokesman Sam Yates said.
In the past, Town Center officials have declined to disclose the number of mall parking spaces, citing competitive reasons.
But an informal count of the mall's valet spaces shows about 330 valet or paid-parking spots spread among several entrances during lunchtime Tuesday. At four of five lots, valet parking costs $4, with the valet outside Saks Fifth Avenue charging $3. Other valet stands are near the main entrance and at entrances to Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.
Valet parking areas are run by AmeriPark, based in Atlanta. Company officials could not be reached for comment.
Shopping center security experts say that, in light of the recent homicides, Town Center should be doing everything it can to make people feel safer.
One idea: Offer free valet parking during the holidays, said George Kirkham, a security consultant in Riviera Beach.
"You want to enable people to park as close as possible," he said.
Longer term, Town Center should move the valet lots to the outer edges of the parking area, away from the entrances, Erickson said. That would free up more spaces closer to the entrances.
She also suggested that the mall offer free valet parking to parents with children younger than 12.
Several shoppers agreed. "They should afford people, especially moms, the ability to park closer to the entrances, where it's obviously safer," said Spencer Sax, a Boca Raton resident and father of two daughters, one a teenager and one a college student. "Why are the valets taking the best spots? They're not the ones at risk."
Sax said that, during a shopping trip to Town Center, he made sure that his teenage daughter spoke to him on her cellphone while she walked from her car to the mall, "so that she would be reassured and I would be reassured."
Lake Worth resident Tina Talarchyk is a frequent Town Center shopper. With twin 4-year-old girls, Talarchyk said getting in and out of a car with kids already is a struggle with strollers and shopping bags. Making parents travel across rows of parked cars makes a family even more vulnerable to crime.
"There's a need for parents to be closer to the mall," Talarchyk said.
It's safety now, not luxury
Shoppers say they understand why some mall customers, such as the elderly or the wealthy, would want valet parking.
"But you don't need it at every entrance," said Cindy Papadoyianis, 45, of Boca Raton.
So what's driving the push for malls to offer valet? Analysts say it's a business decision. Those in the top 20 percent income bracket account for 40 percent of retail sales, said Patricia Edwards, managing director of Wentworth, Hauser & Violich, an investment management firm in Seattle.
Because Simon is going to get substantial sales out of people who can afford valet parking, "it behooves serving them," Edwards said. "If I was Simon, I'd have valet every time I turn around."
Simon's decision to cater to wealthy shoppers "doesn't make the safety issue go away," Edwards said. But with the recent crimes, every shopper now faces a decision when parking: "Is your safety worth it?" she said. "Yeah, maybe it is."
That's the conclusion reached by Papadoyianis, the mother of two children, ages 8 and 5. Before the slayings last week, Papadoyianis said she would park wherever she could find a spot at Town Center.
"But I told my husband I'm only going to park valet now," Papadoyianis said. "It's the only way I feel safe."
Mall slayings take us out of comfort zone
By Emily J. Minor
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 20, 2007
On any given day, Julie Parkins - the assistant manager of a women's clothing store at Town Center at Boca Raton - would have driven to work, parked her car and waltzed right in.
On Wednesday, though, she sat for a bit in the parking lot, car locked up tight, waiting for the sun to steal away some of that early morning darkness. It was only 6:30 a.m.
Parkins, who's worked in retail for 30 years, is used to being cautious when she walks to and from the store where she's working.
It's the retail mantra, really.
Car keys ready, she tries to keep her hands free. At day's end, she always watches her fellow workers to make sure their cars start and they get on their way.
It's a sensible habit, more than anything else.
"We can't live in fear," Parkins said. "We have to go day-to-day."
But, truth be told, it's hard not to think about the creepy double-murder at Town Center a week ago Wednesday, especially if Town Center is your workplace, or your favorite mall.
Sure, awful things happen everywhere.
Sure, when it's your time, it's your time.
But the Dec. 12 murders of a mother and her little girl, found bound and shot dead in their car near a loading dock at this upscale mall, does unsettle even the toughest of us.
Employees, and premises, are guarded
A perplexing case - one that police say may have some patterns of a deranged killer - can rattle the old status quo.
It should rattle the old status quo.
Parkins said she's careful to not let down her guard. As a manager, she's also careful to put on a game face for the younger women who work in her store.
"It's brought up all the time," she said, about the murders.
"You have to be aware of your surroundings. You cannot get complacent."
Mall officials - Town Center is owned by Simon Property Group - have apparently asked their store employees not to discuss the murders with reporters. Several sales clerks I approached on Wednesday said they wouldn't talk because of that request. But through casual conversation, it's clear mall officials have ramped up security.
Early Wednesday morning, there were security cars everywhere. A Boca Raton police cruiser was parked in a loading dock. It was empty, but it was there.
And several workers said it's normal now to have a guard stationed outside the mall entrance at closing time.
Some of the younger workers at several of the more hip shops said their families were nervous and they, personally, were on edge.
For some, shopping now requires escort
The murders - which police say resemble a nonfatal incident involving a mother and her child in August - have also changed shoppers' behavior. Jack McAllister, 75, was at the mall with his significant other on Wednesday morning.
If not for the deaths of Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year-old daughter, Joey, he would have been home while she went to the mall to make a return, he said.
"I didn't want her to come alone," said McAllister, who lives in Delray Beach. "I was concerned enough that there might be a pattern to this.
"This was a pretty atrocious murder."
For McAllister, it was hard not to get reflective about the random crime in South Florida, where he's lived and worked for many years.
Last Christmas Eve, there was the fatal shooting at the Boynton Beach Mall, a crime he brought up as we sat on a bench and talked.
"I'm not a scaredy-cat," he said. "But it does make you stop and think."
All things considered, that's a good thing.
~ emily_minor@pbpost.com
Slain mother, child mourned by friends in West Boca
By Rachael Joyner | South Florida
Sun-Sentinel
December 20, 2007
WEST BOCA - Friends, family and complete strangers came to mourn the deaths of a mother and child murdered just days before Christmas, leaving a community racked with grief and searching for answers.
"Why, God?" was the haunting question that overshadowed the daylong wake Wednesday for Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter Joey, 7, who were found tied up and shot in Bochicchio's idling SUV in the Sears parking lot at the Town Center mall last week.
"I was absolutely crushed. I cannot get them out of my mind," said Judi Olsen, fighting back tears. "I had to stop here and pay my respects."
Olsen didn't know Joey and her mother or their family, but she felt compelled to be at the wake. Like many who came with balloons, flowers and cards, she was trying to get a little peace.
"I wrote the family a letter. I told them that I'm grieving with them," she said. "I cannot understand the monster who would kill a woman and her child. I can't stop thinking of the terror they must have felt."
A steady stream of people trickled into the Babione Funeral Home on Glades Road west of Boca Raton Wednesday, some wiping away tears and others embracing.
"Joey looked so at peace," said Gary Karp, of West Palm Beach, a friend who worked with Bochicchio. "Nancy loved her so much. She lived for her daughter."
One-by-one mourners stopped to comforted Bochicchio's sister, JoAnn Bruno.
"Her sister was hysterical, but she was glad to see so many people coming to pay their respects," said Stephanie Donner, of Boca Raton, who knew Nancy through a mutual friend. "She talked a lot about the happy-go-lucky child Joey was."
In an interview with WPTV-Ch. 5, Bruno and her husband shared their grief and happy memories with the single mom and the second-grader.
"She was my sister, my friend, my heart. I mean when I lost my mom and dad I had a hole in my heart. And this has taken away literally half of my heart," Bruno said. "I'll never feel the same again."
Phillip Hauser, Joey's father, was also at the wake. In an interview with WPTV he said that he had been seriously talking with Joey and her mom about getting back together. The two had been separated for three years before divorcing in 2006.
Bruno and her husband are convinced that Joey's mom fought to save her daughter.
"She was super protective of Joey," Stanley Bruno said.
"She was fighting for that child and begging, begging. I could hear the screams, I could hear screeches begging them to let her go," JoAnn Bruno said through sobs. "She lived for that child. Like I said she came along late in life and everything was for Joey."
A funeral Mass for Joey and her mother was scheduled for 10 a.m. today at St. Jude Catholic Church, 21689 Toledo Road, west of Boca Raton.
Rachael Joyner can be reached at rjoyner@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6645.
Police locate 2nd person of interest in Boca mall murders
By Leon Fooksman |Sun-Sentinel.com
12:29 PM EST, December 20, 2007
BOCA RATON - Police are no longer looking for the last of the two homeless men detectives wanted to question in connection with the discovery of a slain woman and her daughter at the Town Center mall.
Detectives found Charles Jackson, 50, in Miami. He told them he found the cell phone belonging to Nancy Bochicchio, 47, in the 1500 block of Northeast First Avenue in Miami.
Bochicchio and her daughter, Joey, 7, were discovered fatally shot in their SUV in the mall's parking lot on Dec. 12.
Funeral service ends for Boca mall murder victims
By Jerome Burdi |Sun-Sentinel.com
12:53 PM EST, December 20, 2007
BOCA RATON - The funeral service for a mother and her daughter who were
murdered last week at the Boca Raton Town Center mall ended shortly
before noon today.
Bishop Gerald Barbarito was among the hundreds of weeping mourners who attended the ceremony for Nancy Bochicchio and 7-year-old Joey Bochicchio-Hauser at St. Jude's Catholic Church.
JoAnn Stellino, a family friend, read a eulogy written in the form of a letter to Nancy Bochicchio. She said Nancy lived for Joey and Joey was a very smart, well-spoken and outgoing young girl.
"Under that tough NY exterior you are a mushball," JoAnn Stellino said. "Your whole world was Joey."
"My heart is broken for your family as I prepare to say goodbye to two people who died too soon," Stellino said.
After the mass, the caskets were taken away in hearses.
Family released heart-shaped Happy Birthday balloons were released into the sky by family members. Joey would have turned 8 on Monday.
Hundreds of mourners pay respects to slain mother and daughter
By Dianna Smith
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 20, 2007
More than 400 people said goodbye to Nancy Bochicchio and her daughter, Joey, this morning during a service at St. Jude's Church where the pastor preached love and forgiveness.
The coffins of the mother and daughter were wheeled into the church west of Boca Raton to a choir of angelic voices singing through tears.
Nancy Bochicchio's close friend, JoAnn Stellino, whose daughter went to school with Joey, read a letter she had written to the pair after their Dec. 12 murders.
My daughter "is having nightmares. She doesn't understand she will never see you again. I told her you were angels in heaven and she said she wanted to go to heaven to play with Joey."
Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter, 7, were found sprawled in Bochicchio's car outside the Town Center mall in Boca Raton early last Thursday morning by a mall security guard. They had been bound and shot and the car was still running.
Boca Raton police have released a sketch of a man suspected of killing the pair and said there are similarities between the murder and an Aug. 7 armed robbery and abduction at the mall of a woman and her young son. In that instance, the woman and boy were unharmed.
Nancy Bochicchio and her daughter will be buried in New York state tomorrow.
Police question second man in Boca mall killings
By Kevin Deutsch and Michael LaForgia
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 20, 2007
BOCA RATON — Boca Raton police have located the homeless man who found Nancy Bochicchio's cellphone in Miami.
Charles Jackson, 50, told detectives he found Bochicchio's cellphone in the area of 1500 N.E. First Ave. in Miami.
Detectives will be in the Miami area today passing out fliers in English and Spanish and conducting searches.
Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter, Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, 7, were found dead at the Boca mall last week. Police are still searching for a "person of interest" in the Bochicchio killings.
The suspect is described as a white or Hispanic male between 18 and 25 years old, between 5-foot-10 and 6 feet, with a medium build. He may wear his hair in a ponytail.
The suspect is believed to be the same man who bound, kidnapped and robbed a 30-year-old woman from a Town Center parking garage in August, police said.
Hours after the Bochicchios were discovered bound and shot to death in an idling SUV outside the mall, Jackson found the woman's cellphone gave it to a Miami police officer, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
Unaware that it was a key piece of evidence in a double-homicide investigation, the officer drove around with the cellphone in her car for several hours, until Boca Raton and Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office detectives caught up with her Thursday night.
When detectives retraced the officer's steps in a search for the homeless man, known only as Charles, he was nowhere to be found, the source said.
On Tuesday, Boca Raton police circulated a composite sketch of Charles and another man, 40-year-old David Goodman, saying both were wanted for questioning in the killings.
They were found last Thursday, bound and shot in the head at point-blank range, sources said, though Boca Raton police would not confirm the distance. Their bodies were sprawled in Bochicchio's 2007 Chrysler Aspen SUV outside the Sears loading dock at 6000 W. Glades Road.
On Tuesday night, Boca Raton detectives tracked Goodman to a Burger King at 1700 Biscayne Blvd. in Miami and questioned him about the case. Afterward, Miami-Dade authorities arrested him on a grand theft auto warrant and took him to a Miami-Dade jail.
Goodman found Bochicchio's credit card Tuesday night in the Omni area north of downtown Miami, police say.
"He agreed to speak with our investigators," said Sgt. Jeff Kelly, Boca Raton police spokesman. "Hopefully, this case moves forward."
How Bochicchio's cellphone got from her SUV in Boca Raton to the lot in Overtown remains unclear, though the Town Center mall is barely a mile from Interstate 95 on Glades Road.
Bochicchio's friend David Stewart said a strange man answered in Spanish when he called Bochicchio's cellphone Thursday. The man hung up when he heard Stewart's voice.
When police released names and pictures of Goodman and Charles, they described the development as a potential break in the case, which has become a priority for every officer at the Boca Raton Police Department, officials said.
Police are looking for a third man they suspect of ambushing a 30-year-old woman and her 2-year-old son in the Aug. 7 attack at the Boca mall.
Detectives think the same man killed the Bochicchios and cited similarities in the cases. Victims in both attacks were bound in a particular way and held at gunpoint, a source said.
Although the woman in the August attack was forced to withdraw $600 from an ATM before she and her son were left at the mall, police won't say whether Bochicchio was forced to do the same. They have said they are poring over video recorded at the mall and other businesses.
After the Dec. 12 killings, investigators re-interviewed the earlier victim and drafted a composite sketch of the gunman based on her months-old recollections.
Another unusual circumstance in the double-homicide investigation: Nancy Bochicchio was bound at the neck, a source said.
Detectives suspect her killer was involved in crimes in other areas.
To catch him, investigators have enlisted the help of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, which is profiling the killer from Quantico, Va. Police also are working closely with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and have reached out to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and U.S. Marshals Service, among other agencies.
Meanwhile, Goodman eventually will be moved from Miami-Dade to the Broward County jail, Broward authorities said.
Oakland Park Detective James Ramirez said that an Oakland Park woman met Goodman on May 24 at a Chevron gas station at Northwest 31st Avenue and Oakland Park Boulevard and he later stole her Blue 2006 Toyota Scion, jewelry, purse and cellphone.
"He told her that he was homeless and she felt sorry for him and took him to her home for the night," Ramirez said. "When she woke up, she found he had taken some personal belongings and her car."
Miami-Dade police recovered the Toyota in June and found a religious organization photo ID in it. Ramirez learned Goodman's name through the organization and eventually located his girlfriend, who worked at an Oakland Park restaurant.
On Wednesday, a wake for the Bochicchios took place at Babione Funeral Home west of Boca Raton. The funeral began at 10 a.m. today at St. Jude Catholic Church, 21689 Toledo Road, in suburban Boca Raton.
City officials are offering a $350,000 reward for tips leading to the killer. Anyone with information should call Boca Raton police at (561) 338-1352 or Crime Stoppers at (800) 458-8477.
Eerie similarities between mall abduction and later killings
By Kevin Deutsch and Michael LaForgia
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 20, 2007
BOCA RATON — Eerie similarities exist between an Aug. 7 armed robbery and kidnapping at the Town Center mall and a Dec. 12 double-homicide at the same shopping center: In both cases, victims were bound at the neck and had goggles pulled over their heads, according to a relative of the earlier victim and a source familiar with the homicide investigation.
Boca Raton police say only that there are similarities between the two crimes, but will not elaborate.
The first victim, a 30-year-old woman shopping with her two year old son, was driven to an ATM, forced at gunpoint to withdraw $600, taken back to the mall and released.
Four months later, Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and daughter, Joey-Bochicchio-Hauser, 7, were found bound and shot in her idling SUV, Boca Raton police said. An unknown amount of money was stolen.
Nancy Bochicchio was found with a plastic zip-tie around her neck and she and her daughter both were shot in the head at point-blank range, according to sources familiar with the investigation. Boca Raton police would not confirm those details. Their bodies were found after midnight Dec. 13 in Bochicchio's black 2007 Chrysler Aspen SUV outside the Sears loading dock at 6000 W. Glades Road.
Bochicchio was bound at the neck with a plastic tie, a source said. A relative of the Aug. 7 victim said her neck and feet were also bound, her wrists handcuffed and her head tied to her car seat. Goggles were pulled over her eyes, the relative said.
The relative said Boca Raton police did not initially believe all the details of the first victim's story. But when the Bochicchios were found dead, police sought the earlier victim out, believing the attacks were probably carried out by the same man. She described her attacker to police, who drafted and circulated a composite sketch identifying the man as a "person of interest" in the double-homicide investigation. Police haven't found the man pictured in the sketch. Hours after the Bochicchios were discovered, Charles Jackson, 50, a homeless man, found the murdered woman's cellphone in a lot by the Miami Arena in Overtown.
He gave it to a Miami police officer, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
Unaware that it was a key piece of evidence in the double-homicide investigation, the Miami officer drove around with the cellphone in her car for several hours, until Boca Raton and Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office detectives caught up with her Thursday night; when detectives retraced the officer's steps in a search for the homeless man, known only as Charles, he was nowhere to be found, the source said.
Investigators found Jackson and another man wanted for questioning, 40-year-old David Goodman, after circulating pictures of the men on Tuesday. That night, Boca Raton detectives tracked Goodman to a Burger King at Biscayne Boulevard and 17th Terrace in Miami and questioned him about the case. Afterward, Miami-Dade authorities arrested him on a grand theft auto warrant and took him to a Miami-Dade jail.
Goodman eventually will be moved from Miami-Dade to the Broward County jail, Broward authorities said. Police said Goodman's cooperating, but would not release any information about what he told detectives. How Bochicchio's cellphone got from her SUV in Boca Raton to the lot in Overtown remains unclear, though the Town Center mall is only four miles down Glades Road from southbound Interstate 95.
Officials said the double-homicide investigation has become a priority for every officer at the Boca Raton Police department. Meanwhile, the family member of the Aug. 7 victim said she is terrified that her attacker will track her down and try to harm her. The woman went to police after the robbery and explained that she and her 2-year-old son had been inside their vehicle in the Nordstrom parking garage when the gunman got into the car and held them at gunpoint, the relative said. He made her drive to an ATM and withdraw $600. He took her back to the mall, leaving she and her son bound tightly in the car. The woman's neck was bound so that she could not move it from her seat back. Her feet and wrists were also bound. Her attacker slid goggles over her eyes, the relative said. Somehow, the woman managed to get out of her vehicle.
She and her son survived with cuts and bruises.
A day after the crime, police released a one-paragraph announcement stating that detectives were investigating an alleged armed robbery. It said the victim stated she was attacked by an unknown white man in the first level of the parking garage near Nordstrom, and that an undetermined amount of money had been taken. It asked anyone with information on the crime to call the detective working the case. The statement made no mention of goggles, of the victim being bound, or being forced to withdraw money.
Although the woman in the August attack was made to withdraw $600 from an ATM before she and her son were left at the mall, police won't say whether Bochicchio was forced to do the same.
After the Dec. 12 killings, investigators re-interviewed the earlier victim and drafted a composite sketch of the gunman based on her months-old recollections.
Detectives suspect the killer was involved in crimes in other areas as well.
To catch him, investigators have enlisted the help of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, which is profiling the killer from Quantico, Va. Police are also working closely with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and have reached out to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and U.S. Marshals Service, among other agencies.
City officials are offering a $350,000 reward for tips leading to the killer. Anyone with information should call Boca Raton police at (561) 338-1352 or Crime Stoppers at (800) 458-8477.
Being safe at the mall? Just can't buy that anymore
Ralph De La Cruz | Lifestyle Columnist
December 20, 2007
Melanie Ross headed to the mall Sunday afternoon with her 8-year-old daughter, Hannah.
No big deal. Nothing says American holidays like a mom and daughter heading off to do a little shopping together.
But when the Rosses pulled into the parking lot just west of the Sears store at Town Center Mall in Boca Raton, the magnitude of what they were doing hit.
"Leaving home, I didn't really realize," Melanie said. "It wasn't tough until I got here. When I realized it, I think I squeezed her hand a little too tightly."
Her forehead creased with focus and concern. She glanced toward her daughter, standing sadly, quietly off to one side.
"Don't walk away, Hannah."
You can't help but hold your kid a little closer this holiday season when you hit the malls. Not after what happened last week, when another mother and daughter — Nancy Bochicchio and her daughter, Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, whose 8th birthday would've been Monday — were on such an outing. They never got home.
Some sick, cowardly waste of human DNA apparently robbed and killed them. Their bodies, tied up, were found in the family SUV, still running in the parking lot near Sears.
I felt fury simply hearing of such a despicable crime. Then I progressed to a sense of disgust and repulsion for any person who could kill a little girl and her mom. Call it the outsider's grieving process. And then I moved on to questions that have no answers. To the absurdity of trying to make sense of the senseless.
Why would a killer leave the car running? In a bustling upscale mall full of security during the holiday shopping season? Why tie someone up who was going to be killed anyway? Why those two people among the thousands around them?
Why those two, and not me and my daughter?
For the Rosses, there are all those questions. But so much more.
You see, they are not outsiders. Joey went to the same school, St. Jude Catholic School, as Hannah and her 10-year-old brother, Jacob.
"I can't imagine what the family feels," Melanie said. "But I know what the school feels. We're broken."
As she continues talking, another glance toward Hannah. "Stay close."
Melanie said her son has taken news of the murders particularly hard.
"Jacob's asked more questions about it," Melanie said. "Maybe it's because he's a little older and can understand it better."
It's a phrase of speech. Nobody — regardless of age — really understands any part of this madness.
"I don't understand how a person could do something that damages so many lives," Melanie continued. "Even her little friends who never get to play with her again ..."
Her voice trailed off and the forehead creased.
Yep. Kids, stay close.
Who's not feeling that these days?
It's a natural response. Like a mama bird throwing a wing over her young when a hawk's in the sky. Keeping our kids close is the 21st century parent's wings.
And that's what's so scary about this double murder. Not that it happened at a nice mall in an upscale town during the holidays. Not that the murderer tied the victims up or left the SUV running.
But that it ruptures one of the key tenets that makes childhood feel safe: As long as kids are with parents, they'll be OK.
The Town Center murders expose that as a lie. As much of an illusion as a shield made of feathers.
If some deranged person is willing to give up his life to destroy others, it'll happen. Doesn't matter if it's Baghdad or Boca Raton.
Still, and all ... kids, stay close.
Ralph De La Cruz can be reached
at rdelacruz@sun-sentinel.com or by calling 954-356-4727. Read his blog
at Sun-Sentinel.com/ralphblog.
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Police Turn To Earlier Sketch
In Boca Killings
Mother, 7-Year-Old Bound, Shot In SUV Outside Mall
POSTED: 11:38 am EST December
20, 2007
UPDATED: 1:15 pm EST December 20, 2007
BOCA RATON, Fla. -- As a mother and her 7-year-old daughter found bound and fatally shot inside their sport utility vehicle outside the Boca Town Center Mall were being laid to rest Thursday, police said they were searching for a subject in a sketch provided from an earlier carjacking there. Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, of Boca Raton, were discovered dead by mall security in a black 2007 Chrysler Aspen with the motor still running around midnight Dec. 12.
The SUV was parked in a merchandise
pickup area near the south side of the Sears department store. An undisclosed
amount of money was taken. On the eve of their funeral, Bochicchio's
sister, Joanne Bruno, and her husband, Stanley, spoke about their deaths
for the first time since they were killed.
"She was my sister, my friend, my heart," Bruno told WPTV
in West Palm Beach. Phillip Howser, Joey's father and Bochicchio's ex-husband,
didn't want to talk on camera, but off-camera he said he and Bochicchio
were trying to reconcile. Bruno said she believes her sister fought
against her attacker or attackers to protect her daughter, who was days
away from turning 8 years old. "She was fighting for that child
and begging -- begging," Bruno said. "I could hear the screams.
I could hear the screeches, begging him to let her go. She lived for
that child."
David Goodman, a homeless man considered a person of interest in their
deaths, was located Tuesday evening in Miami and arrested on an outstanding
warrant charge for grand theft in Broward County. He was interviewed
by investigators about the deaths, but police didn't say what, if any,
information he provided. Another homeless man, Charles Jackson, who
had been considered a person of interest, was located Thursday. Police
said he told investigators that he found Bochicchio's cell phone in
the 1500 block of Northeast First Avenue in Miami. Police said they
would be distributing flyers of the subject sketch and conducting searches
in the area. A $350,000 reward is being offered for information about
the case.
Possible Connection Between Killings, 2 Other Attacks?
At least two other women were attacked and robbed at the Boca Town Center
Mall in the past year, and one of those women was killed. Her mother
said she wonders if there might be a possible connection between her
daughter's death and the most recent deaths. Idey Elias' daughter, Randi
Gorenberg, was killed March 23 in Delray Beach.
"She died with a bullet in her head and thrown out of her car," Elias said. "Those thoughts consume me." Surveillance video from the Boca Town Center Mall showed Gorenberg leaving Neiman Marcus 39 minutes before her body was discovered. "Nobody should meet death the way she did," Elias said. "Nobody should meet death the way Joey and her mother, Nancy, did."
Boca Raton police said there could be a link between the death of Bochiccio and her daughter and the death of Gorenberg. Police also said there could be a connection between last week's killings and a carjacking at the Boca Town Center Mall in August. That victim survived and provided police with a sketch of her attacker.
"You took something from
me, like ripping out my heart," Elias said of whomever killed her
daughter. "You took a mother away from her children. … I
know she's gone. I know she's not coming back. I know that, but the
reason we want to know (who killed her) is to get this person off the
street. We don't want them to do it again."
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