Unsolved: Worcester

In the spring of 1991, 37-year-old Donald B. Wallace disappeared. Donald was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager and had a history of mental illness. He had two steel rods in his back from an injury he sustained earlier in life.  But that didn't stop him from walking everywhere.  It was really what Donald was known best for in Worcester.  He was last seen on April 2, 1991 standing at the co...

It's been nearly 14 years since 36-year-old Patricia Santos was last seen. Patricia was a recovering drug addict. She had been clean and sober for two years and employed at a woman's recovery program in Worcester when she went missing. She was last seen on May 20, 2009.  Her coworkers reported her missing after she failed to show up for work for two straight days.  On May 23, 2009, Patricia's ex-b...

It's around 9 p.m. on Dec. 23, 1982. 58-year-old Marion Kerswell hangs up the phone after a short phone call with her friend. Marion has Christmas Eve plans with her daughter for some last minute shopping and Christmas dinner preparations the next day. But after hanging up the phone with her friend, Marion is never heard from again. More than 40 years later, the same question still lingers: What h...

Where did Waldemar Feliciano go? On a brisk fall morning in November 2005, Waldemar woke up in bed next to his girlfriend in his apartment on Eastern Avenue in Worcester. He got out of bed, put on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a baseball hat…and told his girlfriend he had to go make some calls.  He left the room and has never been seen or heard from again.

What happened to Sabrina Hatheway? Sabrina was last heard from on Dec. 20, 2014.  In the weeks following, her ex-boyfriend Kevin Crozier, with the help of two friends, tried burning down his grandmother's home on Dixfield Road in Worcester in a futile attempt to collect insurance money. Three months later, in March 2015, Crozier and his co-conspirators are in court facing multiple charges, includi...

Arguably the missing person case that has received the most attention over the past decade in Worcester is the disappearance of 23-year-old Sabrina Hatheway. Sabrina was last seen on Dec. 28, 2014, allegedly at the home of her boyfriend, Kevin Crozier, on Dixfield Road in Worcester. Twelve days later, on Jan. 1, 2015, the Worcester Fire Department responded to a structure fire at the Dixfield Road...

It's been nearly five decades since 24-year-old Vicke Lee Lamberton vanished from Worcester, leaving her husband and a rumored love affair behind. No one has heard from Vicke since February 1974. And it took over 35 years for a missing persons report to be filed with the Worcester Police Department.  

In this special episode, we had the opportunity of speaking with Jennifer McLellan, daughter of the late Vincent Martin. Vincent was killed outside of the three-decker he lived in on Millbury Street on Dec. 28, 1995. He was beaten to death and robbed.  We shared Vincent's story in episode 8 of Unsolved: Worcester Season 2.

Unsolved: Worcester returns for Season 3 on Tuesday, Feb. 21. The new season will shine a light on 10 missing person cases currently under investigation by the Worcester Police Department's Detective Unit. 

It's around 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 7, 1973. A man making his way across the parking lot of Seven Hills Plaza on Myrtle Street notices something at the bottom of an embankment on Salem Street. The man takes a closer look and finds the body of 49-year-old Roland Clarkson, face up at the bottom of the embankment. Roland's skull had been crushed.  When police arrive, they find a large chunk of concrete ne...

It's February 21, 1994. 27-year-old Helen Chevalier miraculously makes it home after a harrowing night. Helen works the street as a prostitute to pay for her drug addiction. The night before she luckily escaped the clutches of a john who refused to let her out of the car and kept pulling her by her hair. 24 hours later, Helen leaves her home, saying she's going out to meet a friend. She would neve...

It's early Thursday, December 28, 1995. It's shortly before 6 a.m. and Vincent Martin is leaving his Millbury Street apartment to get to work at Red Cab Company when he's attacked from behind. He's thrown to the ground and kicked several times while he's down.  The assailants removed the cowboy boot on Vincent's right foot and struck Vincent in the head repeatedly.  A few hours late, Vincent's bod...

23-year-old Sonia Blanco and 25-year-old Evelyn Cruz are not alone. Not only will their deaths forever be connected - both women killed on Feb. 4, 19-93, their bodies beaten and severely bruised, both strangled to death and dumped to the curb from a vehicle - b ut they're among a half a dozen or so women all killed in similar fashion over a five-year period in Worcester. Each victim violently stra...

Does Worcester have a serial killer? That's what residents were asking Worcester Police in early 1993. From December 1992 to February 1993, four women were killed. They had all been strangled to death.  On Feb. 4, 1993, the bodies of 23-year-old Sonia Blanco and 25-year-old Evelyn Cruz were discovered just a few miles apart and within 20 minutes of each other.  30 years later, the murders of Sonia...

It's May 1st, 1987. 30-year-old Brian MacAlister had just been in a heated argument involving three other men at Billy's Lounge on Millbury Street.  Brian left the other men and hopped into his brown 1973 four-door Oldsmobile parked outside of the Maurice the Pants Man store. Brian, likely intoxicated, left the driver side door open to his car as he tried to tune a portable radio and smoke a cigar...

It's been over 24 years since 26-year-old Eddie Wheeler was gunned down near a Honey Farms parking lot at the corner of Harding Street and Lafayette Street in Worcester's Canal District. It was 1:30 a.m. on December 26, 1998. Eddie was walking down Harding Street with a group of friends when his killer ran up to him, shooting Eddie four times in the chest.

It's Monday afternoon, October 16th, 1967.  A pair of part-time employees at Jack and Felicia's Cafe on Millbury Street are walking through the front door of the restaurant. They're stopped dead in their tracks as soon as the door swings open. There, lying dead on the floor of the bar, is owner John "Jack" Zuromski. A pool of blood has collected around John's head. A sledgehammer is on the ground...

It's Saturday night, April 13, 1968.  A call is placed to the Worcester Police Department around 11 p.m. It's Albert Morrissette of Blackstone. He's calling to report his 17-year-old daughter,Phyllis Ann Morrissette, is missing. She never returned home after visiting a friend in Boston. Phyllis Ann's body would be found the next day, Easter Sunday, floating face down in Geese Pond in Worcester.

It's around 10 p.m. on Nov. 29, 1967. 21-year-old Sarah Cox should be boarding a public bus at Clark University.  She would be on the bus for roughly two miles, and when the bus approaches Lincoln Square, Sarah gets off and starts on foot in the direction of her apartment on Highland Street. But she never made it.  Days later, her frozen, naked body is found in a ditch in a wooded area off Granite...

In today's special episode, we had the opportunity of speaking with Peter Vasquez, the older brother of 17-year-old Nereida Melendez, who was killed on June 5, 1989. Peter shares what he remembers from the day Nereida went missing, the following day when her body was discovered on Bell Hill, the police investigation and shares some insight on a possible suspect in Nereida's murder.

Season 2 of Unsolved: Worcester starts in the late 1960s and continues across four decades.  We don't stray far from the early, darker days of the city's Canal District and Green Island neighborhoods. Four women found strangled to death, five men gunned down or bludgeoned to death, and the unsolved murder of a woman, whose body was discovered only after snow had melted away. Unsolved: Worcester se...

For 35 years, Dianne Williamson worked at the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, including 10 years as a general assignment and crime reporter and 25 years as a must-read columnist. During Dianne's time at the T&G, she covered many of the unsolved murder and missing person cases that will be covered over the six seasons of Unsolved: Worcester.  In today's episode, Dianne will share with us her insigh...

It's the night of June 5, 1989, and a shadow is cast over the crowd at the Worcester Auditorium, as members of North High's class of '89 are hearing the names of their classmates called one-by-one to receive their high school diploma. One classmate isn't present.  Less than a mile away up on Bell Hill, the body of Nereida Melendez is buried under a pile of wet leaves in a wooded area off Elliot St...

It's the evening of June 5, 1989. A man walking around Chandler Hill Park finds a leather purse in the wooded area of Bell Hill. He turns the purse into the Worcester Police Department's Lost and Found later that night. Less than a mile away, North High School's graduation ceremonies for the class of '89 are underway at the Worcester Auditorium. 17-year-old Nereida Melendez isn't with her classmat...

It's just after 9:30 p.m. on July 3, 2012.  Crowds are gathered along the lower end of Grafton Street in Worcester to watch the city's annual Independence Day fireworks display.  Jonathan Kapulka is standing in a parking lot near the entrance to Walgreens pharmacy. He's with a large group of family and friends. With him are his wife and two daughters. In one of the most brazen and violent acts in...