South Florida
Media Coverage
*~ February, 2008 -- Page 3 ~*
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Boca seeks input for valet
parking law (2/12/08)
Weapons For Women (2/12/08)
High-profile murders: How safe is our mall? (2/12/08)
New sketch released in the Town Center mall shootings (2/14/08)
New sketch of Bochicchios' killer released (2/14/08)
America's Most Wanted comes to Boca Raton (2/14/08)
New sketch in Boca Town Center murder case (2/14/08)
New videos, sketch of mall murders suspect released (2/15/08)
Boca Raton: Council OKs $500,000 rewards for cases similar
to mall killings (2/15/08)
New sketch of suspect in robbery, slayings (2/15/08)
Boca seeks input for valet parking law
By GRETEL SARMIENTO
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
BOCA RATON - City officials will hear from valet parking operators and businesses that use the service before drafting a law that would regulate valet parking.
"We've been recognizing that this is a problem citywide" for a couple of years, said Jorge Camejo, director of Development Services, during a city council workshop Monday.
Confusion exists because the city code doesn't address valet parking. Under "unlawful elimination of required parking or landscaping," the code says it is unlawful to limit the use of parking facilities, segregate parking spaces and deprive the general public of them.
In the last year the city has found nine locations where there seems to be some violation. A law specifically on valet parking would clarify the parking standards and outline the operation terms and approval process for valet parking operators.
For example, annexed areas, in the western part of the city, use the county standard. The county allows up to 25 percent of required parking to be set aside as valet parking. Several communities such as Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach have set up some type of framework regulating valet parking.
The city still has many questions to answer: What percentage of the required parking, if any, could be set aside for valet use? Should valet use be provided in the first place? Where should the valet spots be located?
One question appears to have been answered already: Valet parking will not be eliminated.
"Valet parking is not a necessary evil. It's not evil at all," said attorney Charles Siemon, who's also the chairman of Festival of the Arts BOCA at Mizner Park and a self-declared "serial user" of valet parking. It's just a matter of updating current parking laws.
"If you regulate it, the problem will go away," Siemon said.
He also suggested the city invite business owners and valet parking operators to give their opinions.
City officials agreed to let that happen.
"It would be kind of nice to hear from some people in the industry rather than dictate to them," Councilman Mike Arts said.
Weapons For Women
Last Update: 6:00 am
Reported By: Katie Brace
A mother and daughter found murdered outside the Town Center Mall.
Shopper says, "I'm concerned about my safety with what's going on and everything."
Another woman last seen alive leaving the shopping center. Plus, reports of two other attacks.
Shopper says, "I carry pepper spray now and I have a pocket knife."
When it comes to having extra protection and a feeling of security, Joe Rice at Delray Shooting Center is getting a lot more questions these days.
Joe Rice, manager of Delray Shooting Center, says, "We appear to be doing more Taser purchases, more pepper spray purchases and our concealed weapons classes have been full."
In the non-lethal weapons market. Taser is trying to capture your attention with its sultry advertising. Its range of stylish colors doesn't hurt. At 350 to 400 dollars, it's not cheap.
Joe Rice says, "It's a decent alternative to buying a gun for someone who doesn't want to buy a gun."
The Taser will buy you time, only if you hit your mark. And, you only have one shot.
Joe Rice says, "You would Tase the person and drop the item to ground. It will operate for thirty seconds you run away."
With the Taser you can stand about 15 feet away, it's much different than this...stun gun.
Nick Lipschultz, P.A.R. Firearms & Supplies, says, "If someone grabs you push into them and start zapping until they fall to the ground and run." "A football player will go down in five seconds."
Susan Lipschultz, P.A.R. Firearms & Supplies, says, "Unless there in a really heavy jacket, it's going to go through denim it's going to go through clothing."
There's one product dealers say can potentially disable attacker for up to an hour.
Nick Lipschultz says, "The oil sticks to them and doesn't wipe away."
Kimber's LifeAct is relatively new on the market. It's an oil based pepper spray that can be used further away than the aerosol pepper spray you're probably used to seeing.
Susan Lipschultz says, "Step in spray and leave."
Dealers say it uses a charge like a firearm and is less likely to blow back on your face.
Reporter asks, "If someone wore a mask or glasses?"
Joe Rice says, "It would go around glasses it could go through a mask." "I would rate this up there in the realm as pretty high up in the range of non lethal weapons."
Dealers say just pulling out one of these weapons can be a deterrent. They also say it can make women more confident making them less likely to be attacked. But, if you're attacked don't hesitate.
Susan Lipschultz says, "The biggest mistake is not having the frame of mind, as Nick, said to realize if you're in that situation you have to take action."
Whatever the weapon, the key is you feel comfortable with your choice, so you don't become a victim.
High-profile murders: How safe is our mall?
Posted: Feb 12, 2008 10:27 AM
Reporter: Al Pefley
The Boca Town Center Mall is feeling the heat. Three high-profile murders of its customers have mall officials taking action, and officials from the mall's parent company came to town Monday to show the public just what action they have taken.
In the wake of three unsolved murders, some shoppers are a little nervous. "I never come at night, and I'm always very aware of what's going on around me, double checking," says shopper Barbara Voltz.
Simon Property Group which owns Town Center Mall reassured city commissioners they're doing plenty to improve mall safety. Some say mall management was slow to respond after the murders of Randi Gorenberg last March and the murders of Nancy Bochicchio and her daughter, Joey, in December. "We haven't failed to respond. We have a very strong security program," assures Tim Earnest.
Simon says it has added additional security cameras at Town Center Mall and moved valet parking areas further away from the mall building freeing up spots for shoppers who walk. And, since mid-January, they've also added extra off-duty Boca Raton Police in the mall parking lot and will open a police substation at Town Center as early as April or May.
"The public has told us, because we interact with the public everyday at our properties, that they feel very safe."
Simon is also teaming up with a national group called the National Crime Prevention Council to come up with a task force that will educate shoppers on how to protect themselves. "Here's the reality of it: You know someone took the life of Nancy and Joey; they're out there. We need to find them, and we need the public's support in that regard," states Boca Raton Police Chief Dan Alexander.
City council members seemed satisfied with what they heard from Simon officials. But they told them they need to do a better job of communicating with the public on the fact that there are shuttle buses and escorts they can use to get them from their car to the mall if they feel uneasy.
New sketch released in the Town Center mall shootings
By Dianna Cahn |South Florida
Sun-Sentinel
6:39 PM EST, February 14, 2008
The FOX television show "America's Most Wanted" has released a new sketch of the suspect in the killing of a mother and daughter at the Town Center mall in Boca Raton.
Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year-old daughter Joey were found shot dead in their car in the parking lot of the upscale mall on Dec. 12.
The Boca Raton Police Department released a black and white sketch of the suspect shortly after the Bochicchios were discovered. The sketch was based on a description by a woman who had reported to police in August that she'd been abducted in the parking lot of the Town Center mall.
Police did not release a sketch until after the Bochicchios were killed.
"America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh said while taping an episode on the killings last week that he had concluded that the Bochicchio killings were the work of a "horrible, cunning, pathological monster" that he described as a serial killer.
He linked the killings to three other attacks in the Town Center mall area since March.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said he believed the incidents might be linked but fell short of branding the attacks as the work of a serial killer, while Boca Raton Police Chief Dan Alexander said it was too soon to tell.
The network show focusing on the Boca Raton attacks is scheduled to appear at 9 p.m. Saturday on WFLX-Ch. 29 and WSVN-Ch. 7. The show will chronicle three of the crimes and will also feature the composite sketch of the Bochicchios' killer, which the show released to the media on Thursday.
New sketch of Bochicchios' killer released
By Michael LaForgia and Kevin Deutsch
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 14, 2008
A national television show on Thursday released a detailed rendering of the gunman who robbed and bound a woman at the Town Center mall in August. The same man is suspected in the Dec. 12 murders of a suburban Boca Raton woman and her 7-year-old daughter, who were found shot to death at the same shopping center.
The full-color rendering, commissioned by America's Most Wanted and drawn by Broward Sheriff's Office forensic artist John McMahon, depicts the robber in a floppy hat and sunglasses, as did the black-and-white sketch released before it, but the new picture also shows the suspect in an unbuttoned blue shirt, his hair pulled back in a ponytail.
The new rendering represents the best information authorities have to go on in the search for the man who shot and killed Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter, Joey, after the pair went shopping at the Town Center mall three months ago.
Last month, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and Boca Raton police formed a task force to investigate the Bochicchio killings alongside the March 23 murder of Randi Gorenberg, a 53-year-old wife and mother who was shot in the head and pushed from her Mercedes SUV in a park west of Delray Beach. Thirty-nine minutes before she was killed, security cameras at the Town Center mall captured Gorenberg leaving the shopping center through the exit between Sears and Neiman Marcus - the same exit used by Nancy and Joey Bochicchio before they were murdered.
While an America's Most Wanted crew filmed a reenactment of Gorenberg's murder last week, the show's host, John Walsh, told reporters he suspected a serial killer was responsible for the murders. Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, who has stopped short of explicitly labeling the crimes serial killings, stood by and listened.
"This is a horrible, cunning, pathological monster," Walsh told reporters Feb. 5.
An upcoming episode of Walsh's show will be mostly devoted to the murders of Gorenberg and the Bochicchios; it's set to air Saturday at 9 p.m. on Fox.
A previous episode told the story of a now 31-year-old woman abducted at the mall with her 2-year-old son in Aug. 7. In that attack, a gunman ambushed the woman outside her dark, late-model SUV, forced her to an ATM, made her withdraw $600 and then left her bound with duct tape and plastic ties, having pulled a pair of darkened goggles over her eyes.
The woman's attorney has since said police didn't seem to take the woman's account seriously after she reported the crime.
Four months later, the Bochicchios' bodies were found sprawled inside Nancy Bochicchio's black 2007 Chrysler Aspen, which apparently had idled for hours in the parking lot before a security guard took note. As with the Aug. 7 victim, Nancy Bochicchio had been forced to take money from an ATM and was bound with plastic ties and blindfolded with goggles.
Both she and her 7-year-old daughter had been shot in the head at point-blank range.
Only after their bodies were discovered
did Boca Raton police revisit the Aug. 7 case. A day after the murders
- and four months after originally reporting the encounter to police
- the earlier victim described her attacker to a sketch artist, who
drew the first picture based on her recollections.
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America's Most Wanted comes to Boca Raton
Posted: Feb 14, 2008 05:34 PM
This Saturday, America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back will be airing an episode highlighting the three unsolved murder cases which occurred in the Boca Raton area last year.
Delray Beach, Florida...UNKNOWN RANDI GORENBERG KILLER...In a community where violent crime is nearly unheard of, residents in Delray Beach and Boca Raton, Florida are fearful knowing a murder mystery remains unsolved. The murder of Randi Gorenberg, a well-liked woman who lived and shopped in these safe neighborhoods, has people wondering whether the killer lives among them.
Boca Raton, Florida...UNKNOWN NANCY AND JOEY BOCHICCHIO KILLER...Police in Boca Raton, Florida are still looking for Nancy and Joey Bochicchio's killer. Cops say their best lead is a composite sketch of a man wanted in another violent attack in Boca Raton: the similarities between that case and the Bochicchios' murders are eerily similar, and police believe the man in the sketch could be involved with the vicious double murder of mom Nancy and 8-year-old daughter, Joey.
America's Most Wanted airs on
Fox 29 at 9 PM.
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New sketch in Boca Town Center
murder case
Last Update: 6:04 pm
Reported by: WPTV Staff
America's Most Wanted, the Boca
Raton Police Department and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office,
are releasing the latest sketch of the suspect in the Nancy & Joey
Bochicchio murders.
The sketch will also be seen during the "America's Most Wanted"
broadcast on Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 9 pm ET/PT on FOX.
AMW says they are hoping that the release of this sketch will provide the tip that helps solve this case. All tips are immediately given to investigators for follow up. Tips can be called into 1-800-CRIME-TV or sent in through the AMW website.
New videos, sketch of mall murders suspect released
By Dianna Cahn & Jerome Burdi
|Sun-Sentinel.com
10:30 AM EST, February 15, 2008
BOCA RATON - Police are releasing two new videos Friday regarding the murders of a mother and daughter whose bodies were found in an SUV at the Town Center mall in December.
The news came a day after the release of a new composite sketch of the suspect that enhances his features and is in color instead of black and white.
The first video depicts Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year-old daughter, Joey Bochicchio-Hauser walking through the mall and was recorded from a vantage point inside the Sony store.
The second video shows Nancy Bochicchio's SUV approaching and departing from a bank ATM. At the outset of the investigation, detectives were able to identify witnesses in the area of the ATM and have already obtained statements, police said.
The mother and daughter were found shot dead in their vehicle in the Town Center parking lot Dec. 12.
There is no additional video currently available which would portray suspects or cars of interest.
The videos and sketch provided by America's Most Wanted TV show will soon be added to the police department's Web site at www.myspace.com/brpsd.Two older videos are currently on the site.
The sketch released Thursday uses the original police sketch as a base, a correspondent for America's Most Wanted said.
It was released by the TV show ahead of its airing Saturday of an episode that links the Dec. 12 killings to a March 23 murder and an Aug. 7 carjacking of women who had just left the same mall.
The original police sketch was based on the description of a woman who reported to police in August that she had been abducted in the Town Center parking lot.
Using that sketch, America's Most Wanted asked a forensic artist to sit with the woman and enhance the drawing, said John Turchin, a correspondent for the program.
The artist, John McMahon, works for the Broward Sheriff's Office.
Police are asking anyone with information on the crimes highlighted on the Web site to call police, 561-338-1352 or Crime Stoppers, 800-458-8477.
Boca Raton: Council OKs $500,000 rewards for cases similar to mall killings
February 15, 2008
The Boca Raton City Council gave City Manager Leif Ahnell approval to post rewards of as much as $500,000 for cases similar to the killings of a mother and daughter at Town Center mall.
A day after security found Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, 7, in a mall parking lot inside an idle SUV, the city posted a $350,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.
Generally, any expenditure that size needs council approval, but the council didn't meet for weeks after the crimes. So the council approved the original reward and authorized Ahnell to do it at his discretion in future cases, as long as he alerts council members as soon as possible.
New sketch of suspect in robbery, slayings
By MICHAEL LaFORGIA and KEVIN DEUTSCH
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 15, 2008
BOCA RATON — A national television show on Thursday released a detailed rendering of the gunman who robbed and bound a woman at the Town Center mall in August. The same man is suspected in the Dec. 12 murders of a suburban Boca Raton woman and her 7-year-old daughter, who were found shot to death at the same shopping center.
The full-color rendering, commissioned by America's Most Wanted and drawn by Broward County Sheriff's Office forensic artist John McMahon, depicts the robber in a floppy hat and sunglasses, as did the older black-and-white sketch, but the new picture also shows the suspect in a blue shirt, his hair pulled back in a ponytail.
The new rendering represents the best information authorities have to go on in the search for the man who shot and killed Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter, Joey, after the pair went shopping at the Town Center mall three months ago.
Last month, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and Boca Raton police formed a task force to investigate the Bochicchio killings alongside the March 23 murder of Randi Gorenberg, a 53-year-old wife and mother who was shot in the head and pushed from her Mercedes SUV in a park west of Delray Beach.
Thirty-nine minutes before she was killed, security cameras at the Town Center mall captured Gorenberg leaving the shopping center through the exit between Sears and Neiman Marcus - the same exit used by Nancy and Joey Bochicchio before they were murdered.
While an America's Most Wanted crew taped a reenactment of Gorenberg's murder last week, the show's host, John Walsh, told reporters he suspected a serial killer was responsible for the murders. Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, who has stopped short of explicitly labeling the crimes serial killings, stood by and listened.
"This is a horrible, cunning, pathological monster," Walsh said Feb. 5.
An episode of Walsh's show will be devoted mostly to the murders of Gorenberg and the Bochicchios; it's set to air at 9 p.m. Saturday on Fox.
A previous episode told the story of a now 31-year-old woman who was abducted at the mall with her 2-year-old son on Aug. 7. In that attack, a gunman ambushed the woman outside her dark, late-model SUV, forced her to an ATM, made her withdraw $600 and then left her bound with duct tape and plastic ties, having pulled a pair of darkened goggles over her eyes.
The woman's attorney has since
said police didn't seem to take the woman's account seriously after
she reported the crime. Only after the Bochicchios were discovered did
Boca Raton police revisit the Aug. 7 case.
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