Worcester DA launches renewed push to solve unresolved homicides

WORCESTER, Mass. — For Worcester County District Attorney Joe Early and his office, it’s a new approach to unresolved homicide cases.

“All of these cases are important to us. They all are important to us. And we are working on them,” DA Early told Boston 25 on Thursday.

The DA’s website is now prominently featuring 35 unsolved homicide cases in Worcester County dating back to 1951.

It’s the first batch of cases on the site, more are coming.

In each entry, there is a brief statement of the known facts of the case, as well as a new tip line, a new dedicated way to get information back to investigators.

And in addition to the website, DA Early is also handpicking prosecutors to oversee unresolved cases, to see if new approaches might work with evidence that might be in storage.

The new approach is already paying off. In May, the office made arrests in two unresolved cases.

“When you see the amount of happiness over the closure and justice for the victim, it motivates you to do more and more,” Early said.

Featured on the site are well-known cases, like the case of Warren lifeguard Molly Bish, taken from Comins Pond in 2000.

Other cases that I’ve featured on New England’s Unsolved, like Harvard’s John Donaldson, murdered in 1979 and victim Brenda Lacombe missing from Lowell, but found in Harvard in 1982 are here too.

Some of the cases are decades old.

And Early’s office is now renewing efforts to keep in contact with families who may feel they might never see justice.

“Understand that we know you’ve been thru a tragedy, and we haven’t stopped working. We want to give them a little bit of hope that whoever killed your loved one, killed your family member, killed your friend, we want to bring them to justice,” Early said.

For victims’ families, the search for justice never ends.

In Worcester, the DA is hoping this renewed effort will give families renewed hope that they are not forgotten.

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