South Florida
Media Coverage
*~ May, 2008 -- Page 2 ~*
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| In Loving Memory Of |
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Town Center Mall person of
interest named (5/9/08)
Police set up lineup for surviving Boca Mall victim (5/9/08)
Man arrested at Aventura mall is not the man, victim says
(5/9/08)
Boca mall victim: Aventura suspect not the man (5/9/08)
Wrong man in Town Center murder investigation (5/9/08)
Cops: Man in video not killer (5/10/08)
Person of interest in Boca mall murders freed (5/10/08)
Mall robbery, carjack victims tell their stories (5/18/08)
Money no issue in investigating Boca Raton area abductions,
killings (5/22/08)
Self-defense tips given at Awareness Festival west of
Boca Raton (5/26/08)
Town Center Mall person of interest named
Reported by: Paige Kornblue
Email: pkornblue@wptv.com
Reported by: WPTV staff
Contributor: Jamie Holmes
Last Update: 4:07 pm 5/9/08
Aventura Police say the suspect they arrested inside the Aventura Mall Friday morning is Robert Bodek, 27, of Miami.
According to the arrest affidavit, an Aventura officer was flagged down by Aventura Mall security at 11:27 a.m.
The officer says he was told by mall security that there was a suspicious subject observed walking through the Aventura Mall Food Court, wearing a bulky jacket.
The officer says the man was "visibly recognized to match the physical description of a recent be on the lookout order for a subject wanted for questioning in connection with a homicide."
Aventura Police say officers asked Bodek if they could search his pockets and accompanying bag for weapons and Bodek consented.
Police say as Bodek was being searched, he spontaneously stated that "I was at the Aventura Mall one week ago, and was following my mother, I didn't do anything wrong."
Police say Bodek then began to yell and scream at backup officers.
Police say they asked Bodek to calm down and lower his voice, but he refused and continued to create a scene.
Police say they placed Bodek under arrest at 11:33 a.m. and transported him to the Aventura Police Department for questioning.
Aventura Police Captain Skip Washa says Bodek is currently being questioned by Boca Raton Police detectives.
Boca Raton Police released Aventura Mall surveillance video Thursday.
The surveillance video was from an April 30th tape pulled from Nordstroms cameras.
Police believe the man in the video matches the sketch of the man from the August 7th, 2007 robbery at the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton.
Police have been asking the man in the video to come forward.
Police say they pulled the Nordstrom's surveillance video after receiving a tip from an anonymous caller who reported that a female and her child entered the mall on April 30th and appeared to be followed by a suspicious male.
Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Boca Raton Police Tips Line at 561-416-3331. Callers can remain anonymous.
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UPDATED: 1:09PM
Police sources have confirmed that a man was arrested Friday morning with a hat, sunglasses and a U.S. Passport on him.
He was arrested on disorderly conduct charges after being spotted at the Aventura Mall in northern Dade County.
Police are calling him a person of interest in the Town Center Mall murders.
Police sources say the man stopped cooperating and became belligerent after police asked him if he had identification, a hat, and sunglasses on him.
Aventura police say someone at the mall believed the man looked suspicious and so they notified security. Police say security notified a mall supervisor or alerted police.
News Channel 5 has learned that the man was arrested outside the "Apple" store.
Police sources say they believe the man is a Miami resident.
Boca Raton Police will not comment on the arrest at this point.
We are told Boca Raton Police investigators are in Aventura and plan to interview the suspect.
Aventura police plan to release more information on the arrest this afternoon.
Stay with NewsChannel 5 and WPTV.com
for continued updates.
----------------------------------------------------
Reported by:WPTV staff UPDATE 11AM
The following statement just released from The Aventura Mall
We will continue to cooperate fully with the investigation as it relates to the tip received from an anonymous caller to Palm Beach Crime Stoppers. All calls should be directed to Captain Skip Washa at the City of Aventura Police. He may be reached at 305 466-8969. "
"Aventura Mall has been recently
recognized as one of South Florida's safest shopping centers. We are
committed to provide a safe environment through a comprehensive security
program, which includes an extensive CCTV system, internal security
department and City of Aventura Police Officers."
- Aventura Mall Management
Please stay with NewsChannel 5 and WPTV.com for updats throughout the day.
Click on the video player to the
right to watch Jamie Holmes' report
The tape shows a man in a hat, with a pony tail, who arguably looks
like that suspect in the Town Center Mall murders.
He is a man police want to question. Is he just a guy wearing similiar
clothes to that sketch or the biggest lead police have gotten in this
case?
Either way, it's a terrifying image to see for Nancy Bochichio's sister
Joann Bruno.
"It was very upsetting to see him and to see he's walking around
free and my sister and Joey have no life. He does. And the audacity
of him to come out the way he did is just amazing. It really did shock
me," she says.
Bruno saw the tape on the evening news and is convinced the person she
saw matches that sketch.
The tape was obtained after a tip came into Crimestoppers that this
person was seen following a mother and child in the Aventura Mall.
The tape shows the individual entering Nordstroms and then later coming
out of a restroom.
Now the question, very much on the mind of Joann Bruno, is this the
man they have been looking for, or someone who just looks a little too
close for comfort?
"The police said that he was going to come out and do this again.
And that's what is so scary, is that he is out there and my reaction
tonight is that I was really shocked when I did see the news and I just
hope something comes of it that they can catch him."
Simon Mall doesn't have any comment about the surveillance video.
They do have a small ownership stake in the Aventura Mall, but they
say that's standard in the mall business. They have no role in management
or security.
What's hard for Joann to believe is that this man, who at least resembles
the suspect sketch, was walking around a South Florida mall, reportedly
following a woman and child and was never stopped by any security.
"I can't understand how he wasn't noticed. Apparently he was walking
around there for awhile, so I mean knowing he was out there, they should
have been looking for someone like him. I was very surprised at that.
I think it's just another failure."
Police set up lineup for surviving
Boca Mall victim
Posted on Fri, May. 09, 2008
BY CARLI TEPROFF AND ANI MARTINEZ
cteproff@MiamiHerald.com
Detectives are arranging a police lineup that will include a man who appears to match the description of the killer wanted in the December unsolved murders of a Boca Raton woman and her 7-year-old daughter.
The lineup will be presented to a 30-year-old woman who survived a similar kidnapping and attack with her 2-year-old son on Aug. 7, according her attorney, Walter ''Skip'' Campbell.
''I advised her not to look at anything because if there's going to be a valid I.D. then it will come from the lineup,'' Campbell said.
Campbell said his client felt relief, fear and apprehension when she heard the news that ''a person of interest'' had been arrested at the Aventura Mall on Friday.
''I think she's hoping,'' Campbell said.
Aventura police Capt. Skip Washa said the man, whose ''height and facial features were consistent with the composite'' of the killer, was interviewed by Boca Raton police investigators who drove to Aventura to talk to him.
Robert Bodek, 27, of Northeast Miami-Dade, was carrying a floppy hat and sunglasses similar to the Boca killer when he was stopped by Aventura police responding to a tipster who also thought he looked like the sketch.
When officers approached him in the mall and explained why they were questioning him, they said he became belligerent. He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence.
''He was yelling and cussing and wouldn't calm down,'' Washa said. "We explained to him what was going on and he wouldn't stop, so we arrested him.''
''He is a person of interest because he matches the description,'' Washa said. A photo of Bodek released by police Friday shows him with a short ponytail; the composite shows a man with a long ponytail.
When asked for his wallet, Bodek told police he had lost it, but when they searched him, they found him carrying a U.S. passport and a paper copy of his driver's license, Washa said. He said it was ''suspicious'' that he was not forthright about not having his license.
The report listed Bodek's occupation as "student.''
Bodek has no criminal record in Florida, records show. He lives in a gated townhome with his mother, said a neighbor who declined to give her name.
No one answered the doorbell to reporters at the townhome Friday, but a loudly sobbing woman opened the door to allow in a woman who identified herself only as Angela.
''She's a mother; I can't tell you any more,'' Angela told reporters.
Several neighbors said Bodek was a familiar sight riding his bicycle around the neighborhood, usually clad in a jacket.
''He's always wearing a jacket, even if it's the dead of summer, '' said neighbor Fanny Bernstein.
Harris Freedman, another neighbor, said: "Chances are you have the wrong person. He doesn't have a car; there's no way he could be in Boca.''
The arrest came one day after Boca Raton police released a surveillance video from the Aventura Mall showing a ''suspicious male'' following a woman and her child who were entering the mall through the first floor west entrance of Nordstrom at 2:41 p.m. April 30, police said.
According to Bodek's arrest report, Bodek told police he was at the mall a week earlier, "following my mother, I didn't do anything wrong.''
Police retrieved the Aventura Mall video after an anonymous caller phoned Palm Beach County Crimestoppers on Monday to report that she remembered seeing a man who matched the description of the composite sketch tied to the Dec. 12 murders of Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter Joey, 7, according to Officer Sandra Boonenberg, a spokeswoman with the Boca Raton Police Department.
Now, detectives are combing through surveillance video from more than 200 cameras at the Aventura Mall.
Bochicchio and her daughter were found dead in their SUV in the parking lot of the Town Center mall in Boca Raton. They were shot in the head at point-blank range, bound with plastic ties and novelty handcuffs and their eyes were covered with blacked-out swim goggles. A similar incident occurred Aug. 7 when a woman and her 2-year-old son were bound the same way, their eyes covered with blacked-out swim goggles. That woman and her son were released by the kidnapper. In both cases, the women were abducted near the Nordstrom entrance to the mall and forced to drive to ATVs to withdraw money.
For several months the sketch has been distributed across South Florida. The sketch depicts a man with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing dark sunglasses and gloves. His face was covered with a floppy hat. He was about five feet, six inches tall.
Investigators are pleading with Monday's caller to contact them. ''We'd like to speak to that anonymous caller or the woman,'' Boonenberg said. "We need whatever information is out there.''
The city of Boca Raton is offering a reward of up to $350,000 leading to an arrest.
Anyone with information about
the murders can call Boca Raton police at 561-416-3331 or Palm Beach
County Crime Stoppers at 800-458-TIPS (8477).
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Man arrested at Aventura mall is not the man, victim says
By Peter Franceschina |South Florida
Sun-Sentinel
5:26 PM EDT, May 9, 2008
A Miami man arrested Friday at the Aventura Mall for disorderly conduct and questioned about two slayings and a carjacking last year at the Town Center mall in Boca Raton was not the man who committed the carjacking, the victim in that case told police.
The 30-year-old woman who was carjacked and robbed Aug. 7 after leaving the mall viewed a photographic lineup that included a photo of the arrested man and told police her attacker was not among those pictured, Boca Raton police said in a statement Friday evening.
The woman's attorney, Walter "Skip" Campbell, confirmed that the woman did not identify the arrested man, Robert Bodek, 27, as her assailant.
"The people that were in the photo IDs was not the man who attacked her," Campbell said, adding that the woman has a clear memory of her attacker. "She has this guy's face embedded in her brain."
Boca Raton police believe the assailant who committed the carjacking also was responsible for the Dec. 12 murders of a woman and her daughter, whose bodies were found in their SUV in a Town Center mall parking lot.
Bodek is no longer a person of interest in the crimes at the Town Center mall, police said.
"It's been ruled out by the photo lineup," Boca Raton police spokeswoman Sandra Boonenberg.
The woman's attorney, Walter "Skip" Campbell, confirmed that the woman did not identify the arrested man, Robert Bodek, 27, as her assailant.
"The people that were in the photo IDs was not the man who attacked her," Campbell said, adding that the woman has a clear memory of her attacker. "She has this guy's face embedded in her brain."
Boca Raton police think the assailant who committed that carjacking also was responsible for the Dec. 12 murders of Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter, Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, 7, whose bodies were found in their SUV in a Town Center mall parking lot. Before they were killed, the two were bound at the hands and feet with zip ties and novelty handcuffs. Blacked-out swim goggles covered their eyes. They had been shot in the head.
Shortly before noon Friday, a store clerk at the Aventura Mall called security to report a customer resembled a sketch of the Town Center suspect. Mall security called police, who tried to question Bodek, but police said he became unruly.
Bodek bore a resemblance to a man whose image was recorded on mall security cameras April 30, police said. An anonymous tipster alerted police that a man resembling the suspect in the Town Center murders was seen in the Aventura Mall. Police searched the surveillance video and released copies of it Thursday. It shows a man with an appearance similar to the Town Center suspect.
The Aug. 7 victim helped an artist create the suspect sketch, which has been widely disseminated.
Boca Raton police said Friday they think Bodek is the person in the April 30 video but that Bodek was "unwilling to confirm that he was at the Nordstrom on the date and time in question."
"At this time, other than Bodek's general appearance, there is nothing to link him to the case at the Town Center mall," Boonenberg said.
When Aventura police tried to talk to Bodek on Friday, "he became very belligerent with the officers, saying things like, 'I don't have to talk to you, leave me alone,'" said Aventura police Capt. Skip Washa.
Bodek was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence. Police said he was carrying ahat and sunglasses similar to those worn by the Aug. 7 carjacking suspect.
Boca Raton and Palm Beach County sheriff's detectives also questioned Bodek before he was taken to the Miami-Dade County Jail to be booked on the misdemeanor charges.
One of Bodek's neighbors, Harris Freedman, has known Bodek for about 10 years.
"It's a case of mistaken identity. He's a nice college kid — that's all I can tell you. He wouldn't hurt a flea," Freedman said.
Detectives are looking at another murder case from March 2007 and a second August robbery at Mizner Park that might be connected to the December murders.
Randi Gorenberg, 52, was killed March 23, 2007, after she left Town Center. About 40 minutes after Gorenberg left the mall, a witness heard gunshots and saw Gorenberg pushed from her Mercedes SUV at Gov. Lawton Chiles Memorial Park. Police found her SUV behind a Home Depot on Atlantic Avenue.
Police are asking anyone with information on these cases to call them at 561-338-1352 or Crime Stoppers, 800-458-8477.
Staff Writers John Holland, Robert Nolin and Dianna Cahn and Staff Researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.
Peter Franceschina can be reached
at pfranceschina @sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6605.
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Boca mall victim: Aventura suspect not the man
By MICHAEL LaFORGIA and JOHN LANTIGUA
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 09, 2008
AVENTURA — A Miami man questioned in the Dec. 12 murders of a woman and her 7-year-old daughter and an Aug. 7 kidnapping at the Boca Raton Town Center mall wasn't the kidnapper, the Aug. 7 victim said after viewing a police lineup this afternoon.
Robert Bodek, 27, was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in a shopping mall here after raising a shopper's suspicions, police said.
Despite the excitement Bodek's arrest generated this afternoon, investigators held out little hope that he's the man responsible for the murders, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
"Other than his appearance, there's nothing to link him to the cases," said Officer Sandra Boonenberg, Boca Raton police spokeswoman.
Attention focused on Bodek after he caused a scene at the Aventura Mall this morning, police said.
The temperature in Aventura was 87 degrees this morning, but Bodek wore a coat through which Officer Sean Bergert could see a suspicious bulge, according to Bodek's arrest affidavit.
Bergert noted Bodek looks like the man pictured in a floppy hat and sunglasses in a composite sketch circulated across South Florida after the Dec. 12 murders of Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter, Joey Bochicchio-Hauser. The pair was found bound and shot to death in an idling sport utility vehicle outside the Town Center mall in Boca Raton, near Glades Road and Interstate 95.
When Bergert confronted him, Bodek became increasingly belligerent, police said.
"He's strange," said Bodek's neighbor, Susan Brodsky, who has lived four doors down from Bodek on San Simeon Way for the past few years. "One of those ones that you always hear, 'Oh, after the fact, very quiet, kept to himself.' That kind."
About 11 a.m., a shopper in the food court at the Aventura Mall, at 19501 Biscayne Blvd., noticed Bodek and reported him to security guards, who called Aventura police. Bergert approached Bodek near an Apple store and pulled him aside.
Do you have sunglasses? Bergert asked.
Bodek, whose complexion was dark and whose dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, pulled a pair of sunglasses from his pocket.
Do you have a hat?
Bodek produced a floppy hat.
Bergert asked him for identification. Bodek said he had lost his wallet.
Bodek became belligerent. He said he was shopping and demanded to know why police had detained him at the mall, the walls of which were dotted with renderings of the Bochicchios' killer.
"The officer said, 'Look around, you see these photos? They look like you,'" said Capt. Skip Washa, head of Aventura police investigative services.
Bodek started swearing.
"He refused to calm down," Washa said.
People gathered round in the mall as backup arrived. Bodek started yelling.
"I was at the Aventura mall one week ago and was following my mother," he yelled, according to his arrest affidavit. "I didn't do anything wrong."
Bergert arrested him on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
Under his coat Bodek was wearing a backpack, in which he carried a Xeroxed copy of his driver's license, a U.S. passport and some electronics, which he might have bought at the mall, Washa said.
"He had no handcuffs, he had no flex cuffs, he had no tape. He had no weapon as far as I know," Washa said.
The robber suspected of killing the Bochicchios carried a black fanny pack and a bulging plastic shopping sack from Traffic, a shoestore popular in malls across Florida, according to a woman whose Aug. 7 kidnapping at Town Center might have foreshadowed the murders, police said.
Nancy Bochicchio was found in her SUV bound at the ankles, wrists and neck with plastic ties. A pair of swimming goggles, the lenses of which were covered with black cloth, were pulled over her eyes. A pair of broken novelty handcuffs dangled from her wrists. She and her daughter were shot in the head at point-blank range.
Bodek, whose occupation was listed as "student" on his arrest affidavit, never had been arrested in Florida, state records show.
Brodsky, Bodek's neighbor, described him as "strange" and "very quiet."
"He doesn't come out often, and when he lives there he's kind of in and out," Brodsky said. "Won't say hi."
She often sees him riding a bicycle around the northeast Miami-Dade County condominium complex, she said. She's never seen him drive a car.
Brodsky remembered one exchange with him not long ago. She asked him if his mother was home and he seemed to answer strangely.
"I felt very weird afterwards. I got a very weird feeling," she said. "Kind of like a shadow."
Jack Bernstein, who lives three doors down from Bodek, called the man "odd" but "very bright," a computer enthusiast whose voice is surprisingly deep and calm.
"He's always walking alone," said Bernstein, who has offered Bodek rides to his condo from time to time. "He walks the neighborhood alone."
Bodek now is being held in the police department's temporary holding cell in northeast Miami-Dade County. Boca Raton detectives were examining the things he carried before he was to be fingerprinted and photographed, Washa said. Eventually he'll be turned over to a Miami-Dade County jail.
An attorney for a woman whose Aug. 7 kidnapping from the Town Center mall might have foreshadowed the Bochicchios' murders said his client probably will work with police this afternoon to determine whether Bodek is the man who attacked her.
"Everyone's trying to set up a photo ID," said Fort Lauderdale attorney Walter "Skip" Campbell. "She said, 'Should I be watching any of this on TV?' I told her not to. We want to make sure that the water isn't tainted. We want to make sure that whoever they catch is the right guy."
Bodek's arrest comes a day after Boca Raton Police circulated security camera footage of a man entering the Aventura Mall on April 30.
Whether the man in custody is the same man shown on the video tape wasn't immediately clear, police said.
Visible on footage taken at the entrance to Nordtrom on April 30, the man's resemblance to the robber suspected of killing the Bochicchios is hard to ignore.
He matched a composite sketch down to the closest detail: the floppy beige hat, the dark complexion, the dark hair pulled back in a ponytail.
An anonymous caller told a Palm Beach County Crime Stoppers operator that the man followed a woman and her child into the Aventura Mall, said a Boca Raton police statement released Thursday.
Boca Raton detectives drove to the Aventura Mall and found security camera footage that shows the man walking into Nordstrom.
Police were searching for the man, and the caller, in hopes of building on their investigation.
So far, detectives have met with little success despite the January formation of a task force staffed by city police and Palm Beach County sheriff's investigators. Boca Raton city officials offered an unprecedented $350,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer.
The crime detectives are faced with solving reverberated across South Florida and, along with two other incidents tied to the Town Center mall in Boca Raton, prompted some observers to speculate a serial killer was moving around in their midst.
On March 23, 2007, Randi Gorenberg, 52, was taken in her 2007 black Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle to a park west of Delray Beach and shot to death after shopping at Town Center. Security cameras recorded Gorenberg leaving the mall through an exit between Neiman Marcus and Sears - the same exit the Bochicchios would use nine months later.
On Aug. 7, a 30-year-old woman and her 2-year-old son were kidnapped from the Nordstrom parking garage at Town Center by a calm and highly organized gunman, an attack that foreshadowed the Bochicchios' murders, authorities suspect.
During an hours-long ordeal, the gunman, clad in a floppy hat and sunglasses, directed the woman to drive her 2007 black Lincoln Navigator to a Bank of America at 21060 St. Andrews Blvd. He made her withdraw $600 in $200 increments from an ATM.
He bound her with plastic ties and inexpensive handcuffs and drove her north on Florida's Turnpike to West Atlantic Avenue before returning her to the Town Center mall. He left her wearing swimming goggles, the lenses of which were covered with black cloth.
On the night of Dec. 12, a mall security guard discovered Nancy and Joey Bochicchio shot to death in a black 2007 Chrysler Aspen SUV idling near the Sears loading dock. The killer had pulled a pair of swimming goggles, lenses covered with black cloth, over Nancy Bochicchio's eyes and bound her ankles, wrists and neck with plastic ties. A broken pair of inexpensive metal handcuffs dangled from her wrists.
In the months after the Bochicchios were murdered, family members of Gorenberg, the Aug. 7 victims and the Bochicchios each sued Town Center and its corporate parent, Simon Property Group, alleging negligence.
Detectives have quietly sorted through leads.
Sightings such as the April 30 one have not been rare in the five months since the Bochicchio murders. Investigators so far have gotten more than 850 tips in the case, said officer Sandra Boonenberg, Boca Raton police spokeswoman.
Anyone with information about
the murders can call Boca Raton police at (561) 368-6201 or Palm Beach
County Crime Stoppers at (800) 458-TIPS (8477).
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Wrong man in Town Center murder investigation
Reported by: Paige Kornblue
Email: pkornblue@wptv.com
Reported by: WPTV staff
Contributor: Jamie Holmes
Last Update: 5/09 10:41 pm
Even though Robert Bodek wouldn't admit it to police, investigators are confident it was him walking around the Aventura Mall last week when he was caught on surveillance tape.
The 27-year old was spotted in the mall again Friday morning. He was wearing a bulky jacket and was carrying a round fishing-style hat and sunglasses.
It was all too similar to the Town Center murders sketch that has been circulated so prominently around South Florida.
Police approached Bodek at the mall Friday and asked if he had ID.
"He indicated he did not," says Aventura Police Captain Skip Washa. "That his wallet is lost. They went on to question him about why are you here, what are you doing here, and he started to become belligerent. Started yelling, cussing, screaming at officers and officers were saying calm down. All we're doing is trying to get information, and someone called in that you look like this and he kept screming and yelling and cussing at officers."
Bodek was then arrested on disorderly conduct and spent the afternoon inside the Aventura Police department, being questioned by Boca Police and the Violent Crimes Task Force.
Bodek was un-co-operative throughout the interview.
While he was being questioned, detectives brought another piece of the puzzle toghether. The 30-year old woman who had been attacked in August at the Town Center mall was brought into a law office in Fort Lauderdale.
She's the same woman who supplied police with the suspect's sketch.
Police showed her six photos, one of which was Bodek, and she could not ID him as her attacker.
"We told her not to look at any TV, at any pictures and she came totally blind to look at these pictures," says the woman's attorney Skip Campbell. "She knew what the guy looks like and it's not the guy they arrested."
Bodek is said to have a cleft chin and is much thinner than the man in the August attack.
Bodek is still facing disorderly conduct charges and as of late Friday evening, was still being held in the Dade County jail.
What all this means now, is that everyone starts back at the beginning.
Nonetheless, Boca Police say this shows how diligent they are working this case. They say that two counties away a man with a fishing hat and sunglasses was arrested and brought in for questioning in a matter of hours.
What it also means though is that whoever killed the Nancy and Joey Bochichio, is still out there.
"Remain vigilant," says Boca Raton Public Information Officer Sandra Boonenberg. "Be always aware of your surroundings. If you see anyone that comes to your attention, that is suspicious, don't ignore it. Act on it, call police."
The victim from the August 7th, 2007 robbery was shown a photo line-up,
police say. The victim indicated the suspect from her case was NOT included
in the line-up, according to authorities.
Robert Bodek was transported to the Miami-Dade County Jail, charged with resisting arrest without violence and disorderly conduct.
His bail was set at $1,500.
Stay tuned to NewsChannel 5 on the nightbeat at 11pm and wptv.com for complete updates.
Arrest documents: http://www.wptv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=1b005b02-e457-42f9-a6cf-ae496af9b3ef
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Cops: Man in video not killer
A man at the Aventura Mall has been ruled out as a 'person of interest' in the double murder at Boca's Town Center.
Posted on Sat, May. 10, 2008
BY ANI MARTINEZ AND CARLI TEPROFF
armartinez@MiamiHerald.com
A man who appeared to fit the description of the killer wanted in the unsolved murders of a Boca Raton woman and her 7-year-old daughter last December is not the kidnapper, authorities said Friday.
Police concluded the man was not a suspect after a 30-year-old woman -- who survived a similar abduction and attack last August at the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton -- did not pick him out of a lineup of photographs.
''At this time, other than [his] general appearance, there is nothing to link him to the cases at the Town Center Mall,'' said Officer Sandra Boonenberg, a spokeswoman with the Boca Raton Police Department.
Boca investigators, who questioned him for five hours Friday, said the North Miami-Dade man is no longer a person of interest.
The arrest of the man took several twists and turns Friday after a surveillance video was released a day earlier showing a man at the Aventura Mall who resembled the Boca mall suspect.
''Initially this lead looked very interesting because of the video, but the Aug. 7 victim was unable to identify him,'' said assistant chief for Boca Raton police Edgar Morley. "This is absolutely not a setback in the case because every single lead becomes part of the case.''
''We are still not done,'' Morley added. "This investigation remains at the top of the list.''
The man, carrying a floppy hat and wearing dark sunglasses and a ponytail, looked like the composite sketch of the Town Center killer. But instead police learned the man in the video was a 27-year-old student named Robert Bodek.
Authorities were alerted that the man resembling the Boca mall killer was at Aventura Mall.
When officers swooped in and explained why they were questioning him, they said Bodek became belligerent, they said. He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence and transported to the police station. ''He was yelling and cussing and wouldn't calm down,'' Sgt. William ''Skip'' Washa said. "We explained to him what was going on and he wouldn't stop, so we arrested him.''
When asked for his wallet, Bodek told police he had lost it, but when they searched him, they found him carrying a U.S. passport and a paper copy of his driver's license, Washa said. It was ''suspicious'' that he was not forthright, he added.
Boca Raton detectives traveled to Aventura to question Bodek. Authorities said that during the five hours of questioning Bodek was cooperative.
Late Friday, Bodek was jailed in connection with the mall arrest. Bond for both offenses was set at $1,500.
At his home, a woman identified as his mother sobbed and wailed as reporters interviewed neighbors about her son. She did not talk to reporters.
Police retrieved the Aventura Mall surveillance video after an anonymous caller phoned Palm Beach County Crime Stoppers on Monday to report that she remembered seeing a man who matched the description of the composite sketch of the Boca mall killer.
The tipster said the man appeared to be following a mother and daughter near the Nordstrom entrance at the Aventura Mall.
The killer is wanted for the Dec. 12 murders of Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter Joey, 7. Bochicchio and her daughter were found dead in their SUV in the parking lot of the Town Center mall in Boca Raton.
They were shot in the head at point-blank range, bound with plastic ties and novelty handcuffs and their eyes were covered with blacked-out swim goggles. A similar incident occurred Aug. 7 when the 30-year-old woman and her son, 2, were bound the same way.
That woman and her son were released by the kidnapper. In both cases, the women were abducted near the Nordstrom entrance to the mall and forced to drive to ATMs to get money.
The city of Boca Raton is offering a reward of up to $350,000 leading to an arrest.
Anyone with information can call Boca Raton police at 561-416-3331 or Palm Beach County Crime Stoppers at 800-458-TIPS (8477).
Miami Herald staff writer Jennifer
Mooney Piedra contributed to this report.
Person of interest in Boca mall murders freed
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Miami Herald Staff Report
The man who faced hours of questioning about the Town Center mall murders was released from a Miami-Dade man jail Saturday afternoon. Police ultimately ruled him out as a person of interest.
Lorraine Bodek, mother of 27-year-old Robert Bodek — who was arrested Friday morning for disorderly conduct at the Aventura Mall — defended his actions and said he is partially deaf, reported Miami Herald news parter WFOR-CBS 4.
Aventura police said a shopper at the mall spotted a person who looked like the man in surveillance video released on Thursday. The video showed a suspicious man who resembled a police sketch of the Boca Town Center murder suspect. Police arrested her son after he allegedly became belligerent during questioning.
''My son is a good person,'' Lorraine Bodek said outside the Miami-Dade County Jail. ....I think they handled it improperly. I think my son was in his rights when he didn't want to speak with them.''
She said her son has a hearing disability. ''He cannot hear so I don't have all the details of what transacted between security and my son,'' she said.
'"My son has no problems,
he's a college student, he's a good person, he has no bad habits, he's
intellectual, he reads book, he doesn't socialize a lot due to his not
being able to hear,'' she said.
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Mall robbery, carjack victims tell their stories
By Tim Collie and Macollvie Jean-Francois
|South Florida Sun-Sentinel
May 18, 2008
Pembroke Lakes Mall, Pembroke Pines
2:15 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31, 2003
Parking lot near Burdines
Michelle Montesano knew enough to turn her wedding ring around on her finger, so only the band showed. She also knew to loop her purse tightly over her shoulder when walking alone.
But the teenage boy who put the gun to her head that afternoon didn't want the ring or the purse. He wanted her Toyota.
"I opened the door and put my foot out of the car and I saw this guy approaching. And honestly, at the moment, I thought he was selling M&Ms," said Montesano, 35, a sales representative. "And then he rushed up on me. He just put the gun right up to my head and said, 'Give me the key.' I'm thinking, 'This is a Sequoia. It has a dent in it. This isn't supposed to be happening to me.'"
The teenager signaled to another car. Montesano quickly memorized the license plate. Police located both the getaway car and Montesano's stolen SUV in Pembroke Park three weeks later. One teenager quickly confessed and identified his partner.
Although her car was returned, the interior was ruined. The thieves had left bags of rotting groceries and meat in it for days.
Weeks later, a state attorney's prosecutor called her and asked if she wanted the two teens, ages 14 and 17, charged as a adults.
"I am a believer that people can change, so I said I didn't want them to get the maximum," she recalled. "I got a letter a few months ago that they were being released."
Town Center at Boca Raton
4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 7, 2007
Parking lot north of Sears
Anxious about her upcoming baby shower, Ashley Rose Young decided a new dress would do her some good.
She was seven months pregnant and shopping on a Sunday afternoon. As she left Sears, two teenage boys approached her from behind.
"I felt really uncomfortable," said Young, 23. "In my head, I said: I have to run to my car. You get a gut feeling, you know. That gut feeling that something is not right, kind of like before you go on a roller coaster."
In what struck Young as a bizarre attempt to reassure her, one teen said, "Our car is parked over there."
She hurried to her car and put the key in the ignition, but one of the teens pulled her from the car and threw her to the ground. The other yanked open the passenger door and grabbed her purse.
Several people in the parking lot rushed to help. But the robbers got away with her purse, cash, credit cards and cell phone. The thieves quickly drained her bank account and used credit cards for hundreds of dollars of purchases that took months to untangle.
The ordeal, she said, caused her already high blood pressure to skyrocket and led to the premature birth of her otherwise healthy son.
A 16- and a 17-year-old from Pompano Beach were identified through fingerprints and arrested.
Young is still afraid to leave her Boca Raton home for errands.
"If I absolutely have to go to Publix, to get diapers for my son, I'll go," Young said. "But I get anxiety about it."
Pembroke Lakes Mall
8:24 p.m. Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Parking lot near Macy's south entrance
Tiffany Acosta was multi-tasking. She had her 10-year-old daughter by the hand, and was talking to her husband on her cell phone with the other.
She felt one tug on her purse, then another. She reared around.
"Give me your purse," he said.
"What do you mean?" she responded. "I'm not giving you my f----- purse."
Her daughter saw the gun first, and screamed. The man yanked the purse off Acosta's arm and waved down a car driven by his partner.
"He's this skinny little guy," recalled Acosta, 37, a property manager in Pembroke Pines. "And I'm thinking, 'I can take you.' ... And all this time my husband is [on the cell phone] getting more excited because he realizes I've been held up and I'm chasing this guy."
The robber got away and Acosta couldn't get the license plate number. She figured the mall's security camera's surely had good footage of the crime.
She was wrong.
"The cameras were just awful," Acosta said. "You couldn't see someone lying dead in the street with these cameras. They're such poor quality." Acosta now realizes what an easy mark she was. "I had a child. I was talking on the cell phone. I was in a long dress and high-heel shoes. I think he [the robber] just saw me coming."
There have been no arrests.
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Money no issue in investigating Boca Raton area abductions, killings
By Leon Fooksman |South Florida
Sun-Sentinel
May 22, 2008
Detectives have no spending limit as they investigate a series of abductions and killings connected to the Town Center mall in Boca Raton, police commanders said.
Since a nine-member task force formed in mid-January to investigate the unsolved and high-profile crimes, it has spent more than $108,000 — including almost $94,000 on overtime for officers and $14,700 on DNA testing, according to records released to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel this week.
Boca Raton and Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office detectives are trying to determine if the Dec. 12 slayings of a mother and her 7-year-old daughter are related to an August carjacking and robbery of a 30-year-old woman and her 2-year-old son and the March 2007 killing of a 52-year-old mother who lived west of Boca Raton.
In all three cases, the victims were women who drove SUVs. They were robbed. And they were either last seen or abducted at the mall.
"Money has never been an issue in this investigation," Boca Raton Capt. Matthew Duggan said. "No expenses have been spared."
Law enforcement has not detailed the investigative costs incurred before the task force was created.
Duggan and sheriff's Capt. Jack Strenges, who are supervising the task force, declined to say if they have identified a suspect or suspects. They also would not say if they believe all the incidents are linked. The killing of Randi Gorenberg in March 2007 had been investigated separately until it was added to the cases investigated by the task force.
The captains said detectives are close to completing the processing all the forensic evidence from the crime scenes. Investigators still are going through 850 leads, they said.
In a Boca Raton building used by the police and fire departments, the detectives have been reviewing surveillance video, studying robbery reports, analyzing DNA and evaluating other evidence.
There have been busy periods with potential breaks in the investigation.
Some of the detectives rushed out to help investigate the case of a 39-year-old attorney found dead in a Plantation canal March 7 after being reported missing the previous day by colleagues. Police initially suspected Melissa Britt Lewis may have been targeted while shopping at Publix by a robber looking for a random victim.
A Broward County grand jury later indicted the estranged husband of Lewis' best friend for her slaying. Tony Villegas has pleaded not guilty.
Then, on May 9, members of the task force questioned a Miami man arrested on a disorderly conduct charge at the Aventura Mall in Miami-Dade County. Police said he matched the description of the suspect in the killing of Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and daughter Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, who were found at Town Center in December and the abduction and robbery of the 30-year-old woman and her son in August.
But the woman in the August abduction, who has asked not to be identified, said her attacker was not the man arrested at the Aventura Mall.
The $93,586 overtime costs for the task force members and other officers, covering work from mid-January to May 1, will be reimbursed through a federal grant obtained by the Sheriff's Office, Strenges said. The Edward Byrne grant program covers expenses for state and local law enforcement agencies in various crime-related initiatives.
Strenges and Duggan gave no time frame for how long the task force will continue working on the cases.
"We'll go as long as we feel we can be productive," Strenges said.
Leon Fooksman can be reached at
lfooksman@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6647.
Self-defense tips given at Awareness Festival west of Boca Raton
Awareness Festival west of Boca was put on by friends of slain mother and daughter
By Chrystian Tejedor |South Florida
Sun-Sentinel
May 26, 2008
West Boca - In hopes of turning a tragedy into a life-saving lesson, friends of a mother and daughter who were found dead at the Town Center mall put on a festival Sunday that showed families how to spot trouble and fend off attackers.
"Unfortunately, Nancy and Joey were murdered, but what that brought to the table is awareness," said Carol Johnson-Greff, organizer of the Awareness Festival. "You think you're safe, but you don't know. I think we have just become complacent with things."
Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and daughter Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, 7, were found dead in their sport utility vehicle in a parking lot behind Sears on Dec. 13. Police have said they were tied up and that the killer forced Nancy Bochicchio to withdraw money from an ATM before they were shot.
Martial arts moves and some common-sense tips could save the lives of other people in similar situations, Johnson-Greff said. Members of the Ma Ju Do Martial Arts Academy showed a group of 20 people what to do if grabbed from behind by an attacker.
"You have to yell," said Mary Bruschino, an instructor at the Royal Palm Beach-based school. "Yell '9-1-1' or 'I don't know this person' or 'Fire.' Anything but 'Help.' People have become desensitized to 'Help.'"
Bruscino first pulled herself away from student Pedro Llanes, then twisted his arm and pushed him to the ground. In another scenario, Bruscino broke free from Llanes, then used the palm of her hand to push up his chin. "When you push his chin back, the rest of his body will follow," said Llanes, who stumbled backward.
Palm Beach County Sheriff's Deputy Rodney Hudson urged visitors to watch their surroundings.
"If you're coming out of a store and something doesn't look right, go back inside," he said. "If you see someone by your car, go inside and get someone to walk you to your car or call the Sheriff's Office."
Hudson said people don't always pay attention to blaring car alarms because there often is one sounding. Instead, he said, women should buy a loud, shrill whistle that will get people to turn around.
Verli Bishop, of Boca Raton, brought her daughters, Lauren and Alexia, to teach them to be safe.
The key lesson, according to Lauren, 6: "Don't talk to strangers."
Members of the Bochicchio family hope the festival will help keep attention on the unsolved case. But they also were happy to see others learning tactics and tips that could keep them safe. "I feel that personally I've always been oblivious of my surroundings," said Nancy Deblasio, a niece of Nancy Bochicchio. "I'm a lot more conscious now."
Chrystian Tejedor can be reached
at ctejedor@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6631.
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