In elementary school, Rose Moniz was the kind of person who would make friends with the kids no one else would play with or were picked on. “Rosie had a big heart. She loved everybody,” her sister, Kim Pacheco, said.Moniz was one of six children in a close-knit Acushnet family that worked in the region’s seafood industry. But the family was ripped apart when, in March 2001, Moniz was murdered inside her home in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Her father discovered her badly beaten body.”My mother and father aged overnight, you could see it,” her brother, Paul Cunha, said. “It was really tough.”Moniz’s parents died without her murder being solved. But now Bristol County District Attorney Tom Quinn’s office has indicted a suspect in her case: Moniz’s half-brother, David Reed.”Did you ever suspect that he could be the killer?” Karen Anderson, a reporter at sister station WCVB, asked her family.”Not initially. I didn’t think it was him,” Cunha said. “He was a pallbearer (at her funeral).””How did he act at that time?” Anderson asked.”Very quiet, unusually quiet,” Cunha replied. “And then pretty much after that, he disappeared.”Reed might have never been charged had not the DA’s cold case unit taken a fresh look at one of the murder weapons — a conch shell.Investigators asked themselves how a killer might have held it, maybe wrapping his fingers inside the shell. And that’s where they found the DNA.”It was a significant step forward in trying to solve this case,” Quinn said.The thought of how Rose’s father found her made it especially gratifying to see someone charged, Quinn said. “There’s her poor father coming in and seeing a body in that condition. That’s his last memory of his daughter,” he said.”What was the motive?” Anderson asked.”(The) motive appears to be robbery. Her purse was disturbed. It was dumped. The contents were dumped out. Money was taken,” Quinn said.Quinn said the DNA from the conch shell was matched against a sample that Reed gave because of a conviction in another assault case. In that case, he allegedly beat another woman with a tire iron and left her for dead, then assaulted a New Bedford police officer.He was convicted and imprisoned because of the assault on the New Bedford police officer. He was initially not charged with the assault on the other woman because she later died.But because of his conviction on the assault on the officer, he had to give a DNA sample. And it was that sample that, Quinn said, was a match with the DNA they were able to get from inside the conch shell.Reed fled after getting out of prison, and after years on the run, he was arrested in Rhode Island in September.Reed’s run from justice is over, but the family’s ordeal may never end.”He took one of my best friends, my sister,” her brother said. “He robbed us all of a life of growing old together.”
In elementary school, Rose Moniz was the kind of person who would make friends with the kids no one else would play with or were picked on.
“Rosie had a big heart. She loved everybody,” her sister, Kim Pacheco, said.
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Moniz was one of six children in a close-knit Acushnet family that worked in the region’s seafood industry. But the family was ripped apart when, in March 2001, Moniz was murdered inside her home in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Her father discovered her badly beaten body.
“My mother and father aged overnight, you could see it,” her brother, Paul Cunha, said. “It was really tough.”
Moniz’s parents died without her murder being solved. But now Bristol County District Attorney Tom Quinn’s office has indicted a suspect in her case: Moniz’s half-brother, David Reed.
“Did you ever suspect that he could be the killer?” Karen Anderson, a reporter at sister station WCVB, asked her family.
“Not initially. I didn’t think it was him,” Cunha said. “He was a pallbearer (at her funeral).”
“How did he act at that time?” Anderson asked.
“Very quiet, unusually quiet,” Cunha replied. “And then pretty much after that, he disappeared.”
Reed might have never been charged had not the DA’s cold case unit taken a fresh look at one of the murder weapons — a conch shell.
Investigators asked themselves how a killer might have held it, maybe wrapping his fingers inside the shell. And that’s where they found the DNA.
“It was a significant step forward in trying to solve this case,” Quinn said.
The thought of how Rose’s father found her made it especially gratifying to see someone charged, Quinn said.
“There’s her poor father coming in and seeing a body in that condition. That’s his last memory of his daughter,” he said.
“What was the motive?” Anderson asked.
“(The) motive appears to be robbery. Her purse was disturbed. It was dumped. The contents were dumped out. Money was taken,” Quinn said.
Quinn said the DNA from the conch shell was matched against a sample that Reed gave because of a conviction in another assault case. In that case, he allegedly beat another woman with a tire iron and left her for dead, then assaulted a New Bedford police officer.
He was convicted and imprisoned because of the assault on the New Bedford police officer. He was initially not charged with the assault on the other woman because she later died.
But because of his conviction on the assault on the officer, he had to give a DNA sample. And it was that sample that, Quinn said, was a match with the DNA they were able to get from inside the conch shell.
Reed fled after getting out of prison, and after years on the run, he was arrested in Rhode Island in September.
Reed’s run from justice is over, but the family’s ordeal may never end.
“He took one of my best friends, my sister,” her brother said. “He robbed us all of a life of growing old together.”
