Man Charged With 2001 Murder Of His Half-Sister In New Bedford

NEW BEDFORD (CBS) – A 53-year-old man has been indicted in the 2001 cold case homicide of Rose Marie Moniz in New Bedford.

David Reed, formerly of Acushnet and New Bedford, was indicted last week, charged with the murder of his half-sister. He was also indicted in September in connection to the 2003 attempted murder and robbery of Maribel Martinez-Alegria in New Bedford.

"I'm pleased to announce the indictments related to the previously unsolved cold case homicide of Rose Marie Moniz. She was a mother who was brutally murdered inside the sanctity of her own home," said District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III.

Moniz was bludgeoned with a fireplace poker, a conch shell and a cast-iron kettle – suffering fractures and injuries to her skull face as well as the rest of her body. Her purse was emptied on the floor and the cash was missing.

In 2019, investigators from Quinn's Cold Case Unit studied photos from the Moniz killing, noting that the perpetrator would have to put his fingers inside the conch shell to hold it firmly enough to attack Moniz. They asked the crime lab to test the inside of the shell, which revealed a full DNA profile that matched Reed's.

Reed was interviewed by State Police in August of 2020, after which, he fled to Alabama, Quinn said, and over the next year, traveled to California, Hawaii, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, before being arrested in September at the Providence Rescue Mission shelter.

Alegria was assaulted in June of 2003. She had been hit in the head with a tire iron and pretended to be dead while the perpetrator stole her pocketbook. Reed was arrested and charged with the crime, but he did not show up for his trial.

"These are some of the worst cases we see, and many families have waited for years hoping for answers and some measure of justice," District Attorney Quinn said.