March, 2009

Randi Gorenberg Media Coverage

*~ March, 2009 ~*


In Loving Memory Of Randi Gorenberg

Will investigators ever solve Gorenberg murder? (3/23/09)
Randi Gorenberg's mom to ask for public's help solving crime that left woman dead (3/23/09)
Family pleads for clues on anniversary of Boca Raton mall shopper's murder (3/23/09)
Mother pleads for help in 2007 Gorenberg murder case (3/23/09)
Two Years, No Answers In Boca Mall Murder Case (3/23/09)
Mom renews call for help finding daughter's killer (3/23/09)
Mother Makes Plea To Find Daughter's Killer (3/23/09)
Murder victim's mom to plead for justice (3/23/09)
Two years ago, murder of Randi Gorenberg damaged the community (3/24/09)

Will investigators ever solve Gorenberg murder?

Last Update: 4:11 am

BOCA RATON, FL -- It was two years ago today that Randi Gorenberg was found shot and killed. Her body had been pushed out of her Mercedes SUV, possibly by the person who pulled the trigger.

Gorenberg, a 52-year-old mother of two, had gone shopping at the Town Center Mall at Boca Raton. Surveillance video captured her near the Neiman Marcus entrance. Her body was discovered 39 minutes later, just five miles away from the mall. Her SUV was later found abandoned behind a Home Depot store on Jog Road.

Investigators continue to look for more information to help solve the murder.

Anyone with information is asked to call Palm Beach County Crime Stoppers, 1-800-458-TIPS (8477).

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Will investigators ever solve Gorenberg murder?

Reported by: Danielle Dubetz
Email: ddubetz@wptv.com
Last Update: 3/23 1:09 pm

BOCA RATON, FL -- Today marks the two-year anniversary of the brutal murder of wife, mother and beloved daughter, Randi Gorenberg.

Family and investigators are still pleading for tips and the public's help to bring her killer or killers to justice.
Randi Gorenberg’s body was discovered at Governor Lawton Chiles Memorial Park in suburban Delray Beach.

Witnesses heard gun fire, then saw her body pushed out of her Mercedes SUV. This morning Gorenberg’s mother came here to ask the public for help.

“She was murdered right over here and I haven’t been here since that day so just standing here, it’s so unreal to me,” said Idey Elias.

Gorenberg’s puma shoes and her purse are still missing.

They were pictured on a poster along with the picture of the murdered mother of two.

Gorenberg was taped leaving the Town Center Mall of Friday afternoon, March 23 of 2007. About 40 minutes later witnesses called 9-1-1 to say they’d seen a female pushed out of the passenger side of Gorenberg’s GL 450 Mercedes Benz.

Investigators are still looking for tips. They say the facts of the case haven’t changed but what happened from the moment she left the mall to when her body was found could be the key to the investigation.

They say one good tip could blow the case open.

Elias says says the family has been in shambles since the murder, but says solving the case and bringing the killer or killers to justice could put it back together.

“Every day I see a picture of her in that truck. Every day I think it’s not true. Every day I want to kill that person that did it. But I can’t. But maybe you can help me. Maybe you can remember something of that day,” she said.

A large poster of Gorenberg is up at a bus stop at Atlantic Ave. and Jog Rd. That’s near the Home Depot parking lot where Gorenberg’s abandoned SUV was found.

If you have any information, call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-TIPS.

Your tips will remain anonymous and you may receive a $1,000 reward.

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On anniversary of murder, Randi Gorenberg's mom to ask for public's help solving crime that left woman dead west of Delray Beach

By SONJA ISGER

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, March 23, 2009

Today is the second anniversary of the murder of 52-year-old Randi Gorenberg, a wife and mother who went shopping at the Town Center mall in Boca Raton and was found later that day when her body was shoved from her SUV in a parking lot west of Delray Beach.

Her murder remains unsolved.

This morning, Gorenberg's mother, Idey Elias, is expected to ask the public to reconsider that day and come forward with any clues that might lead to her daughter's killer.

She will hold a press conference with Palm Beach County Sheriff's officials at 10:30 a.m. in Delray Beach.

At this time, investigators know these details about that day:

On Friday, March 23, 2007, Gorenberg left the mall at 1:16 p.m. after shopping. At about 1:54 p.m., someone called 911 to report she heard gunshots and saw a woman pushed from the passenger side of a black 2007 Mercedes Benz GL450 sports utility vehicle in the parking lot of the South County Civic Center west of Delray Beach.

The same vehicle was picked up by surveillance cameras in front of a Home Depot at the southeast corner of Atlantic Avenue and Jog Road at 1:59. Shortly after that, police recovered the SUV in the Home Depot's rear parking lot.

Investigators would like to hear from anyone who saw Gorenberg at the mall or anywhere in between the mall and the Civic Center between 1:16 p.m. and 1:54 p.m. or saw the woman's Mercedes SUV in the Home Depot parking lot. Please call PBSO detective Michelle Romagnoli at (561) 688-4065 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-8477.

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Family pleads for clues on anniversary of Boca Raton mall shopper's murder

By MICHAEL LaFORGIA

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, March 23, 2009

A slight woman stood by a poster plastered over with her slain daughter's face, alone Monday in front of a half dozen cameras and microphones. "It was two years ago today that my daughter was brutally murdered," Idey Elias began quietly, not looking, for all the pain she's shouldered, anywhere close to her 78 years. "I wonder what she was thinking when she knew that this was it, this was the end for her?"

After two years' worth of staking hope on thousands of dead-end leads, after the tension and frustration of not knowing, it came to this on Monday morning: The mother of Randi Gorenberg stood up to plead, once again, for help in catching her daughter's killer.

A tortured path has led her here, to Gov. Lawton Chiles Memorial Park in suburban Delray Beach, where Gorenberg was shot in the head and dumped from her black Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle, "thrown out of her car into the street like an animal," Elias tells the cameras, already starting to lose her composure.

And now that Elias is here, she's no closer to the answers she seeks than in the moments after her daughter was taken, just before 2 p.m. on March 23, 2007, about half an hour after the 52-year-old wife and mother went shopping at the Town Center mall.

An hour after the shooting, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office found Gorenberg's bloodstained Mercedes abandoned behind Home Depot at Jog Road and West Atlantic Avenue.

The killer, or killers, were long gone.

Since that day, two separate squads of homicide investigators have spent countless hours trying to catch them.

"There's a million scenarios," said sheriff's cold-case Detective Michelle Romagnoli, "that we could play over and over."

One theory, put forward early last year, held that Gorenberg's murder was linked to the killings of Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year-old daughter, Joey Bochicchio-Hauser. Mother and daughter were found bound and shot to death in an SUV idling outside the Town Center mall on Dec. 13.

But after forming a task force and devoting 12 months to examining the cases side-by-side, Boca Raton police and sheriff's investigators concluded last year the cases weren't related. As detectives wait for a break in Gorenberg's murder, her family looks to Elias, this slight, soft-spoken woman perched in front of the cameras, for strength.

"I'm her mother. I wasn't there to protect her," Elias tells the reporters. "I want to do something for her now."
After she's finished with her news conference, she'll step away, resume her role as the center around which her broken family turns. She'll take her daily call from her grandson Daniel Gorenberg, 26, who turned to drugs after his mother's death and went into rehab to get better.

She'll make time to brag about her granddaughter Sarie Gorenberg, 23, now a teacher at a private school in New York and a student at New York University.

"I think we both lean on each other," Sarie Gorenberg said of her grandmother, speaking by phone. "That's what we're doing. Living day-by-day and knowing we have each other. And that's all we can do."

When the news conference ends, Elias dries her eyes and stands to one side as the cameramen break down their tripods. She scans the street in front of the park, trying to picture what her daughter must have looked like on the pavement.

"I haven't been here since that day," she says to no one in particular. "I can't believe I'm standing here."

Mother pleads for help in 2007 Gorenberg murder case

Daughter last seen at Boca Town Center mall

By Ralph DeLaCruz | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
12:25 PM EDT, March 23, 2009

WEST DELRAY - Two years to the day after Randi Gorenberg was abducted and murdered, a mother is still crying and a detective is still asking for the public's help.

On a blustery Monday morning, Gorenberg's mother, Idey Elias, stood in Lawton Chiles Memorial Park west of Delray Beach, where her 52-year-old daughter's body was found, and pleaded with the public for help in finding the killer.

"I haven't been here since that day," Elias said through sobs. "I wonder what she was thinking. She must have known it was coming. Me, as a mother, I wasn't there for her. I wasn't there to protect her. I want to do something for her now."

The case has confounded Boca Raton police and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. "At this time, we have no witnesses," Detective Michelle Romagnoli said. "We don't know if it was an adult."
If anything, officials said, the case has become murkier over the past two years.

At one point it was linked to two similar crimes -the Aug. 7, 2007, abduction and robbery of a mother and her 2-year-old son from Town Center mall in Boca Raton, and the murders of Nancy Bocchio and her 7-year-old daughter who, like the others was last seen alive at the mall.

The bodies of Bochicchio and her daughter were found Dec. 13, 2007, in the SUV in the mall parking lot.

A task force of the Sheriff's Office and Boca police detectives, assembled to work the cases, is no longer officially together.

But those those detectives continue to speak daily, and Romagnoli would not say the cases are connected. Or that they're not.

At one point, it was believed Gorenberg's stolen credit cards had been traced to charges incurred in Connecticut and Massachusetts. But, Romagnoli said, those charges may only have been the credit card numbers being fraudulently used.

Crime Stoppers is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case. Call 800-458-8477.

Two years ago, murder of Randi Gorenberg damaged the community
Unsolved Gorenberg murder is a scar on community's heart

Ralph De La Cruz | Columnist
March 24, 2009

What happened at a quiet park just off Jog Road around 1:45 p.m. on March 23, 2007, was stunning in its barbarism.

A 52-year-old wife and mother abducted in the middle of the day and shot in the head. Her lifeless body then callously dumped in broad daylight from her Mercedes-Benz SUV in the parking lot of Gov. Lawton Chiles Memorial Park.

And yet as cruel and horrific as that murder was, the second part of this tragedy is what has happened in the two years since: Not much.

There's still no one who can identify the killer. Few credible leads.

"At this time, we have no witnesses," Detective Michelle Romagnoli said Monday at the park. "We don't know if it was an adult."

Romagnoli, it should be noted, is with the Cold Case Squad.

I was at Chiles Memorial Park because the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and the family of Randi Gorenberg, the victim, held a news conference pleading for the public's help.

"I haven't been here since that day," Idey Elias said through sobs. "Just standing here is so unreal. I wonder what she was thinking. She must have known it was coming. Me, as a mother, I wasn't there for her. I wasn't there to protect her. I want to do something for her now."

There was no indication that March, when Gorenberg was murdered, that an eerily similar crime would occur in August, when a woman and her 2-year-old son were grabbed, robbed, bound, then left alive in the parking lot of the Town Center at Boca Raton, where Gorenberg was last seen.

And then there was the double murder less than nine months later, at the height of the holiday shopping season, when Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year-old daughter, Joey, were abducted, robbed, tied up and murdered inside their car. Also in the mall parking lot.

The three attacks sent a chill through south Palm Beach County and all of South Florida, and caused more than one woman to glance nervously over her shoulder as she walked to or from her car at a mall.

These were more than attacks on five individuals. They were an assault on our communities, on our secure Palm Beach County way of life.

We were all properly outraged. A drawing of a suspect in the December murders was circulated. An inter-agency task force was created to examine links among the three cases.

A $350,000 reward was promised for information leading to the arrest of the Bochicchios' killer.

Yet, here we are, two years after Gorenberg's murder. And a mother is still tearfully pleading for closure, and a Sheriff's Office detective is still looking for a witness. For someone who might be able to help make sense of the senseless.

"Randi was a true victim," Romagnoli said. "I mean, I want to solve all my cases. But when you have a victim such as Randi, who wasn't doing anything wrong, it really motivates you to solve it."

It's clear that Romagnoli is passionate about the case. Her frustration is palpable.

And yet, if anything, the case has become murkier over time.

Law enforcement once clearly connected Gorenberg's murder to the two other attacks. Romagnoli now insists it might not be linked. Or it could still be. And after reporting last year that Gorenberg's credit cards had been used in Connecticut and Massachusetts, Romagnoli now cautions that it was the credit card numbers — not the cards themselves — that had been used. The numbers may have even been imprinted on new cards, or "cloned."

It all seems to indicate that, despite thousands of tips, the investigation has dead-ended.

And so there we were two years later, at the scene of brutality. Relying on the same methods that have produced virtually nothing.

She'd like to hear from anyone who may have been at the Town Center mall around 1:15 p.m. Or around the Home Depot parking lot at Jog Road and Atlantic Avenue around 2 p.m. Gorenberg's SUV was found there."There's a lapse in time when she left the mall to when she's found dead," Romagnoli said.

But if no one has come forward with information in two years, despite a media blitz — particularly after the Bochicchio murders — what are the chances that someone will magically appear now? Romagnoli did not want to discuss questions about whether Gorenberg's husband — who reportedly had been involved with prostitutes — might be a suspect. Or most other things about the case. I asked if they had developed a psychological profile of the suspect. She didn't want to discuss that, either.

Now, I understand the need to keep facts about a case close to the vest. About how divulging facts could taint an investigation. But PBSO needs to remember that information is a two-way thing. You've got to give some to get some.

Particularly when two years of asking has produced nothing but new tears and fresh frustrations.

Anyone with information on the Gorenberg murder should call Crime Stoppers at 800-458-8477.

Ralph De La Cruz's column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Local section and in Sunday Lifestyle. He can be reached at rdelacruz@SunSentinel.com, 561-243-6522 or 954-356-4727.

Two Years, No Answers In Boca Mall Murder Case
Mar 23, 2009 6:27 pm US/Eastern

PALM BEACH COUNTY (CBS4) - A South Florida family is marking the second anniversary of the death of their loved one in a murder case that remains unsolved to this day.

Two years ago, on March 23rd 2007, Randi Gorenberg was carjacked at some point after leaving the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton. After being driven around for a time, Gorenberg was shot and then her body dumped out of her black 2007 Mercedes Benz GL450 SUV. A witness told police they saw Gorenberg being pushed from the passenger side into the
parking lot of the South County Civic Center in Delray Beach, located about 5 miles from the mall. Her SUV was found abandoned less than two miles away in a Home Depot parking lot.

"There's a lapse in time from when she left the mall to when she came here (civic center parking lot) that we don't know where she went," said detective Michelle Romagnoli with the Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office. "She may have been running other errands that we're just unaware of and someone out there may know."

On Monday, Gorenberg's mother, Idey Elias, made an impassioned plea for anyone with information to come forward to help police find her daughter's killers.

"She was thrown out of her car into the street like an animal. Who does that, who can live with themselves," wondered Elias.

Elias said the pain of not knowing what her daughter's final moment is nearly unbearable.

"I wonder what she was thinking when she knew that this is the end for her. She must have seen it coming, what was she thinking," said Elias. "Every day I see a picture of her in that truck, every day I think 'it's not true', every day I want to kill the person that did it. Maybe you can help; maybe you can remember something of that day."

The last big reported break in the case came in August 2008 when surveillance cameras captured the images of two men using Gorenberg's credit cards in the northeast.

Palm Beach County investigators said someone used Gorenberg's credit cards in Massachusetts and Connecticut. At the time, Gorenberg's mother, Idey Elias, said she was hopeful the new development would help solve her daughter's murder.

"You know they say you feel this pain that feels like a wound inside, but it's worse than that," said Elias. "It overwhelms your whole body; you're never the same. Inside I'm just broken up, you know, mental things can be worse than physical things sometimes."

Investigators said the credit card purchases took place on August 12, 2008. The first occurred at 1:02 p.m. when two portable Playstation hand held game systems were purchased from a Sears store in the Holyoke Mall in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Twenty minutes later, a food purchase was recorded in West Springfield, Massachusetts and an hour after that, a Playstation 3 Game System was purchased from Toys R Us located in Newington, Connecticut.

Investigators said they didn't know if these men were involved in Gorenberg's murder or whether they just had her stolen credit cards or cloned copies of her stolen credit cards.

In 2008, Gorenberg's husband filed a lawsuit against the owner of the Town Center Mall, Simon Property Group, for negligence for allegedly failing to provide adequate security. Simon has denied wrongdoing and said security was adequate.

Just four months after Gorenberg's murder, another Boca Raton woman, 47-year old Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year old daughter Joey were robbed, bound and killed outside the Town Center Mall. Their bodies were found in Nancy's SUV, parked outside the Sears store at the mall.

After the Bochicchio murders, it was discovered another woman in August of 2007, was also robbed, kidnapped but released outside of the mall.

So far, no arrests have been made in any of the cases.

CBS4's Lisa Cilli contributed to this report

Mom renews call for help finding daughter's killer
Posted on Monday, 03.23.09
By BRIAN SKOLOFF
Associated Press Writer

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- It's been two years and still no sign of the killer.RandiGorenberg, 52, a bubbly, outgoing doctor's wife and mother of two, was shot in the head and dumped from her black Mercedes SUV in a park off a busy suburban Delray Beach street. It was March 23, 2007.Authorities have pursued thousands of leads to no avail.

"I beg you, help me," Gorenberg's mother, Idey Elias, said Monday during a news conference at the site where her daughter's body was dumped. "Two years ago today ... my daughter was brutally murdered, gangster style," Elias said, sobbing. "And she was murdered right here."Elias said her life changed forever on that day."We don't enjoy our lives anymore," she said, wiping tears from her face.

"Maybe if we can catch this killer, maybe it will cease the pain."Detectives are asking the public once again for help as their case drags on."Somebody knows something somewhere," said Detective Michelle Romagnoli of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.Surveillance video captured Gorenberg leaving the posh Town Center mall in nearby Boca Raton on the day of her death. Just over a half-hour later, at midday, witnesses reported a gunshot, then seeing Gorenberg dumped from her car in the park. The Mercedes was later found abandoned in a nearby Home Depot parking lot.After the Gorenberg killing, authorities
assembled a task force to investigate two other crimes at the same mall they feared could have been connected.

Just five months after Gorenberg's death, a 30-year-old woman and her 2-year-old son were leaving the Town Center mall when they were kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to drive to an ATM to withdraw $600. The man, wearing sunglasses and a full-brimmed floppy hat, then bound the woman's hands and feet in her back seat and left.Then in December 2007, a mall security
guard making his rounds just after midnight noticed a black SUV idling in the parking lot.

Inside, police found Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year-old daughter dead, each shot in the head in the back seat of their black Chrysler Aspen, both bound in the same way as the woman previously attacked at the mall. Surveillance video from a nearby bank shows Bochicchio, too, was forced to drive to an ATM to withdraw $500 before she was killed.Authorities have no suspect in any of the attacks.

Detective Romagnoli said Monday the task force has since been disassembled but authorities continue to work the cases.

She said no other similar crimes have been committed since the last attack at the mall.

Mother Makes Plea To Find Daughter's Killer
Woman Shot, Killed After Leaving Boca Raton Mall 2 Years Ago
POSTED: 11:49 am EDT March 23, 2009

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- Two years to the day that Randi Gorenberg's body was dumped at a Delray Beach park, her mother made a desperate plea to help find her daughter's killer. Gorenberg, 52, was killed after leaving the Town Center at Boca Raton on March 23, 2007.

Her mother made a public plea for help during a news conference Tuesday at Gov. Lawton Chiles Memorial Park, where her daughter's body was found.

"Every day I want to kill that person that did it, but I can't," Idey Elias said, clutching a photograph of her slain daughter. "But maybe you can help me." Gorenberg was shot in the head and her body thrown from her husband's sport utility vehicle a few miles from the Town Center, where surveillance video showed her leaving the mall about 40 minutes before she was killed. The SUV was later found abandoned in a Home Depot parking lot. Her purse, shirt and shoes were taken and are still missing, Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Detective Michelle Romagnoli said.

Late last year, PBSO detectives said Gorenberg's husband may have been the target. Detectives said Stewart Gorenberg had been frequenting escorts in crime-ridden areas of Broward County and usually drove his Mercedes SUV, which Gorenberg was driving the day she was killed. "I beg you, all of you out there that are listening, you may have heard something. You may know something -- any little thing to help this family," Elias said.

Murder victim's mom to plead for justice
Monday is the two year anniversary of Randi Gorenberg's murder
March 23, 2009 - 8:01 AM

The mother of murder victim Randi Gorenberg is expected to plead for help on Monday, the two year anniversary of the unsolved homicide of Randi Gorenberg.

On Friday, March 23, 2007, around 1:16 pm, Randi Gorenberg left the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton after shopping.

Authorities say that someone called 911 about 40 minutes later to report the sound of gunshots and the sight of a woman and being pushed out of a car in Delray Beach.

Police later found Gorenberg shot dead in the parking lot of the South County Civic Center in Delray Beach. They found her black 2007 Mercedes Benz SUV at a nearby Home Depot. Surveillance cameras captured someone driving the car through the store parking lot.

Gorenberg's murder remains unsolved.

On Monday, the two year anniversary of the murder, detectives will plead for help alongside Gorenberg's mother.

Anyone who saw Gorenberg at the Boca Town Center Mall, or any location on March 23, 2007, or witnessed Gorenberg's black 2007 Mercedes Benz SUV in the Home Depot parking lot around 2:00pm, or witnessed any suspicious activity in the area on that day is asked to call the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Detective Michelle Romagnoli at (561) 688-4065 or Crime Stoppers at 1(800) 458-8477.

Gorenberg was a wife and mother of two children.

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