Mother, 8 year old daughter killed at Town Center in Boca

[JMT]

it sounds like Town Center Mall makes an concerted effort to stifle the reports of crime that happen there. there have been rapes and armed robberies. my mom had her car stolen from there several years back. they could not keep a lid on this.

horrible, horrible, horrible. if this can happen in Boca it can happen anywhere. please pay attention to your surroundings when christmas shopping, people.



Mother, daughter murdered at Boca's Town Center mall

December 14, 2007
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

A mother and her 8-year-old daughter were robbed and killed in a parking lot of the Town Center at Boca Raton, their bodies found by mall security early Thursday morning in an SUV that was left running, police said.

The bodies of Nancy Bochiccio, 47, and her daughter, Joey Bochiccio-Hauser, 8, were discovered in the south parking lot of Sears. The mall closed at 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Police had sought to beef up security during the holiday season.

"You try to plan the best you can for every situation, but how do you plan for random acts of violence such as this?" Sgt. Jeff Kelly asked. "Not knowing when it's going to strike, especially when the mall's closed."

At their home west of Boca Raton, where the two lived alone, neighbors were shocked and in disbelief.

"Why her? Who would kill a little girl like that," said Sandra Rossi, who went outside at 3 a.m. to find Buttonwood Lake Drive swarmed with police. "I can't believe this happened. I don't feel safe here anymore."

Police think the case could be connected to a carjacking about 7:30 p.m. Aug. 7 in the parking garage at Nordstrom department store in which a 30-year-old shopper and her 2-year-old son were abducted as she was putting her bags in the car. A man appeared with a gun and shoved it to the boy's head, his grandfather said. They then tied the woman.

"They made her go to the bank and had a gun to the baby's head," the boy's grandfather, Raymond Diiulio, said. The robbers took $600 then dropped the mother off, back in the garage.

"She didn't have any money. They brought her back to the garage and left her tied up," he said. "In hindsight now, it's a miracle to have this happen to them."

At St. Jude Catholic School, where Joey was a second-grader, the annual holiday concert Thursday night began on a somber note as about 400 students and their families paused in 60 seconds of silence for Joey and her mom.

"We were hit with a terrible tragedy last night," Principal Deborah Armstrong's voice wavered over the microphone. "We're hurt and we're saddened because we are missing part of our family, but we rejoice because we know that Joey and Nancy are with their maker."

Children were sent home from school with a note explaining what had happened.

"I used to wave to her mother every morning, except this morning," said Sky Mercede, whose daughter Michelle was in Joey's class. "I don't think it has sunk in yet."

At the Town Center mall, mothers with young children, teenagers, couples and senior citizens bustled in and out of the Sears store Thursday evening.

"I'm from New York. Nothing stops me from shopping," said Donna Stein of Great Neck, who was there with her parents, David and Pearl Stein of Delray Beach. "There are always muggings at the mall where I shop on Long Island, so I always try to park in the front."

Emily Green, 19, of Boca Raton, heard about the murders from friends who work at Stir Crazy restaurant at the mall.

"I heard that they couldn't get into work this morning because the police had the parking lot blocked," said Green, who came to shop for some holiday gifts anyway. "It upsets me because maybe it happened because a mother was trying to protect her child and resisted."

Bochiccio was making the final plans for Joey's eighth birthday party on Sunday, said Hank Matthews, a close friend and neighbor.

"I have birthday and Christmas presents for Joey in my house," said Matthews, holding back tears. "I just can't believe it."

The two were nice to strangers, a refreshing attitude in West Boca, said another neighbor, Karen Levine.

"She was the nicest, nicest little girl," Levine said, getting too choked up to talk.

"She said hello to everybody, everybody knew her," Levine said. "Even if she didn't know them. She was always saying hello to everybody who walked by."

Mall manager Joe Cilia said in a statement that he had given authorities videotapes from closed-circuit cameras.

Police did not say what was used to kill the mother and daughter or give details on what they were doing before they died, but Kelly said they were apparently shopping.

For the holiday season, Boca Raton police enhanced their presence including bicycle patrol in shopping areas and high-visibility marked units, Kelly said.

"On Black Friday weekend, historically one ofthe busy shopping weekends of the year at the Town Center Mall, there were no reports of auto burglaries, stolen vehicles or robberies," he wrote in an e-mail.

Police have started a "Gone in Four Seconds" initiative in which officers walk through parking lots, speak with shoppers and check parked vehicles for valuables left in plain view.

However, the city is battling an upsurge in crime. Home, business and auto thefts last year were up 4 percent in Boca Raton, records show.

Thieves prefer places such as malls, gated communities and office developments because many people there think they are immune from crime and don't always take proper precautions, police said.

The Town Center mall came into the national spotlight after March 23 when Randi Gorenberg, 52, a mother of two who lived in a $2.2 million home in the Boniello Acres community west of Boca Raton, was last seen leaving the mall at 1:16 p.m. At 1:54 p.m. gunshots were heard and her body was pushed from her Mercedes SUV west of Delray Beach.

Boca Raton Mayor Steven Abrams said shoppers should not jump to conclusions.

"You have to let the investigation take its course," he said. Shoppers should "go about their holiday shopping because the city has a beefed-up police presence at the mall and elsewhere and wants to ensure everyone's safety."

Police are asking anyone with information on this case to call 561-338-1352.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...1.story?page=1

[durrtylexx]

omg thats horrible.

i hope they catch the motherfucker that did this and execute them.

[DeepHouseMan]

This is really sad.

It kills me that there are people who are actually against the death penalty! If they catch whoever did this, they should be fucking fried!!!

[swirlundergrounder]

Killing an adult is one thing, but killing a child is on a different level!

I want to catch these people and grill them on my BBQ or something and feed them to my dog or something sick like that...

[JMT]

Boca Raton police question homeless man about killings at mall

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
December 20, 2007

Boca Raton police have found one of the two homeless men sought for questioning in last week's slaying of a mother and her daughter at Town Center mall.

Detectives located David Goodman, 40, at a Burger King restaurant on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami. He agreed to talk to them about the killing of Nancy Bochicchio and her daughter Joey, but police would not say what, if any, information he provided.

A security officer at Town Center discovered Bochicchio, 47, and Joey, 7, bound and fatally shot, in their Chrysler Aspen on Dec. 12.



Goodman and a man known as Charles came to the attention of police after the men found Bochicchio's purse in Miami's Overtown neighborhood, law enforcement officials said.

Police still are looking for Charles. He is wanted only for questioning in the case, police officials said. He may have had access to Bochicchio's cell phone. They warned people not to approach Charles, but to call police.

After Boca Raton detectives talked to Goodman, Miami police arrested him on a warrant for grand theft auto from Broward County. He was wanted for allegedly stealing the car of a woman he met at a gas station on May 23.

In that case, Goodman spent the night with the woman but left before she woke up and found her jewelry, purse, cell phone and 2006 Toyota Scion missing, according to police.

She told investigators that Goodman said he worked at a nearby IHOP restaurant and lived at a Days Inn. But investigators could not find the robber at either location.

Miami-Dade police found the woman's car in June and the victim later identified Goodman in a photo lineup. Officials filed a warrant for his arrest on Oct. 8 with the Broward State Attorney's Office.

Goodman is being held in the Pretrial Detention Center in Miami.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...,2805645.story

[JMT]

Boca Raton police say girl and mom were taken to ATM before killings

Boca Raton police say abductions similar to earlier robbery

December 22, 2007

Boca Raton - Nancy Bochicchio and her daughter were abducted from the Town Center mall and forced to drive to an ATM hours before they were found dead in their SUV at the mall, Police Chief Dan Alexander said Friday.

That is just one more similarity between the killing of the Bochicchios and the armed robbery of a mother and her young son at the mall in August, he said.

Both crimes occurred at Town Center mall and in both cases the victims were bound, a handgun was used and the mother and child were taken to an ATM, Alexander said.

Police on Friday released surveillance video of Joey and her mother entering the Town Center mall between Sears and Neiman Marcus and later leaving through the same doors on the south side.

"We're hoping the images might spur some recollection in the public," Alexander said.

"We see a very strong correlation with the earlier case," he said during a news conference Friday in front of police headquarters. "That case may very well help us solve this case."

Based on the similarities of the two cases, investigators said they suspect the same person is behind both incidents.

In the August case, a 30-year-old woman told police that a man held a gun to her 2-year-old son, forced her to withdraw money from a bank and tied her to her car seat . She also said the robber put darkened goggles over her eyes, put handcuffs around her wrists and secured her feet with a plastic tie, relatives said.

Alexander would not confirm that goggles, handcuffs or plastic ties were used in either case, saying only that both women were bound. Still, he said, the similarities were enough to reopen the Aug. 7 case.

Police released a sketch of a suspect in the August armed robbery hours after Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, 7, were found tied up and shot in their idling Chrysler Aspen at the mall Dec. 12.

The August victim's family is indignant at Boca Raton police, saying investigators should have made more of an effort initially to find the robber and publicize the crime. Many people in the area, particularly mall shoppers, also have questioned why police didn't issue security precautions until Bochicchio and her daughter were killed.

"There wasn't enough associated with the case to release the sketch," Alexander said.

He said police did all they could to track down the August robber and investigate the case. The day after the Aug. 7 armed robbery, a detective drove with the woman to retrace the previous days events, Alexander said.

"We stopped pursing the case because there was no more evidence or leads to follow up on at the time," he said.

Alexander declined to give details on what time the two left the mall, saying only it was in the late afternoon. He also would not say how long Joey and her mother had been dead before they were found or when they had been taken to the ATM. Police did not know whether the two were killed at the mall.

"We are not speculating where everything took place," Alexander said. "We still have a lot of evidence to sort through, but we have parts of a timeline that we are confident about."

Investigators have not been able to link the killing of the Bochicchios and the Aug. 7 armed robbery to any other incidents, but teams of law enforcement officials are extending their search throughout the state, Alexander said.

The double-homicide investigation has attracted national attention. The Bochicchios' case will be featured today on the Fox television program America's Most Wanted.

This week, investigators questioned two homeless men who said they found Bochicchio's purse and cell phone in a Miami neighborhood. Charles Jackson, 50, who said he found the phone on Northeast First Avenue, and David Goodman, 40, gave police details of places to check for more evidence and other people of interest, Alexander said.

"It is a lot of work," he said. "There is still a lot of evidence to sort through, and we recognize that we need the public's help."

Boca Raton is offering as much as $350,000 for information leading to the capture of a suspect. Police are asking anyone with information on the case to call investigators at 561-338-1352 or Crime Stoppers at 800-458-8477.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...,3985297.story