New Bedford Highway Killer

What the record shows

The New Bedford Highway Killer is the name given to an unidentified person or persons blamed for the deaths of at least nine women whose remains were found beside highways around New Bedford, Massachusetts, between July 1988 and April 1989. Two more women who vanished from the same streets in 1988 have never been found. No one has been convicted. A New Bedford lawyer, Kenneth Ponte, was indicted in 1990 for one of the deaths, but the charge was dropped in 1991 for lack of evidence, and the case remains open with the Bristol County District Attorney's Office.

According to the Associated Press, all eleven women had histories of drug use and frequented a New Bedford neighborhood known for prostitution; Brandeis University Press, publisher of a book on the case, describes them as aged 19 to 36. The Wikipedia article lists the recovered victims as Debra Medeiros of Fall River, Nancy Paiva, Debra Greenlaw DeMello, Dawn Mendes, Deborah McConnell of Newport, Rhode Island, Rochelle Clifford Dopierala of Falmouth, Robbin Rhodes, Mary Rose Santos and Sandra Botelho. Christina Monteiro, 19, and Marilyn Cardoza-Roberts, 34, both last seen in 1988, are the two who remain missing.

The women disappeared over roughly six months, from about March to September 1988. Medeiros, reported missing in late May, was the first found, on July 3, 1988, in woods beside Route 140 in Freetown. Paiva was found beside Interstate 195 in Dartmouth on July 30, DeMello near the Reed Road ramp off I-195 on November 8, and Mendes near the same interchange on November 29. McConnell was found off Route 140 in Freetown on December 1 and Dopierala in a gravel pit off Reed Road on December 10. The last three were found in 1989: Rhodes beside Route 140 on March 28, Santos along Route 88 in Westport on March 31, and Botelho in woods along I-195 in Marion on April 24. The Brandeis University Press description says some remains showed signs of strangulation while others were too decomposed for a cause of death to be determined; the Wikipedia article says Dopierala was beaten.

Kenneth Ponte, a New Bedford attorney, is the only person ever charged with any of the deaths. A grand jury indicted him in August 1990 for the murder of Dopierala, with whom he acknowledged a relationship; he also said he had represented three of the other women as their lawyer. He pleaded not guilty and posted bond. According to the ABA Journal, prosecutors had contended he killed Dopierala because she was going to reveal his drug use. A special prosecutor, Paul Buckley, later said there was not enough evidence and called the indictment a fishing expedition, and the charge was dropped in July 1991. Ponte denied any involvement in the killings. He was disbarred in 1997 over misuse of a client's settlement money and was found dead at his New Bedford home in January 2010; authorities said the death did not appear suspicious.

A second man, Anthony DeGrazia, a construction worker, drew attention in 1989 after a woman who had been attacked said he resembled her assailant. According to the Wikipedia article, District Attorney Ronald Pina sought his arrest on a series of assault and attempted rape charges involving other women, and he was held in jail for about 13 months before his release in June 1990. He was never charged with any of the highway killings. He was found dead in Freetown on July 17, 1990; the district attorney's office called the death a suicide, a finding his family has disputed.

In May 2007 the newly elected Bristol County District Attorney, Samuel Sutter, reopened the investigation, pledging to have state police re-examine the evidence with modern DNA and fiber analysis, and investigators dug up the driveway and patio at Ponte's former home, the Associated Press reported. Nothing from that search has been publicly linked to the killings. The Wikipedia article also notes that Daniel Tavares, later convicted of other murders, indirectly claimed responsibility in a letter written in prison; he has not been charged in this case.

In March 2023 a spokesman for the Bristol County District Attorney's Office told WBSM that at least three men had been considered suspects over the years, that investigators were still pursuing a suspect, and that the office would not give up on the case. The State Police Cold Case Unit has also followed leads from the public, according to Maureen Boyle, a former Standard-Times crime reporter whose 2017 book Shallow Graves is the most detailed account of the investigation.