A 20-year New Bedford cold case murder has been cracked, the Bristol district attorney said on Thursday as police charged a 53-year-old man in connection with slaying a single mother.
Rose Marie Moniz was 41 years old in the March of 2001 when she was bludgeoned to death in her Acushnet Avenue home, found lifeless in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor. The case had gone cold for several years, but now her half-brother has been charged with murder in her killing.
David Reed, 53, has been arrested and will likely be arraigned next week, Bristol DA Thomas Quinn announced on Thursday.
Reed, a former Acushnet and New Bedford man, was indicted last week by a Bristol County grand jury on charges of murder and armed robbery.
He was also indicted in September in connection to a 2003 attempted murder and robbery of another New Bedford woman, Maribel Martinez-Alegria who is now dead. In both cases, the women were struck in the head with heavy deadly weapons, robbed and left for dead. Martinez-Alegria survived her attack.
“I’m pleased to announce the indictments related to the previously unsolved cold case homicide of Rose Marie Moniz,” Quinn said in a statement. “She was a mother who was brutally murdered inside the sanctity of her own home.
“Thanks to the efforts of my Cold Case Unit, along with detectives from our state police unit and New Bedford Police, we were able to bring some sense of relief to the victim’s family, all of whom suffered for the past 20 years from not knowing what happened to Ms. Moniz,” he added. “This case highlights what we are doing in regards to cold case homicides and rapes in our effort to bring justice to the families of victims and the entire community.”
After investigators excluded two potential suspects early on in the investigation, the case went cold.
Then in 2019, investigators from the Cold Case Unit — who were reviewing more than 70 Bristol County cold case homicides — began to pore over evidence and reports from the Moniz slaying. DNA on a conch shell — which the suspect allegedly used as a weapon — was a match to Reed.
Quinn tweeted, “The cold case homicide of Ms. Moniz was solved thanks largely to the fresh sets of eyes of prosecutors & investigators from our Cold Case Unit who have spent the past few years resurrecting previously unsolved rapes and homicides dating back to the 1970s.”
