The ID of a man suspected of committing a horrific murder earlier this week was found in the possession of a woman attacked on a Mission Hill street last year, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis announced today. But the suspect, Edwin Alemany, was never located or charged in the Mission Hill case, and police Internal Affairs will now investigate that apparent mistake, Davis said in a televised press conference this afternoon.
The Sept. 28, 2012 early-morning attack at 226 Parker Hill Avenue, where a woman was strangled and robbed on the street, was never announced to the public by the Boston Police Department (BPD). BPD spokesperson Cheryl Fiandaca did not immediately respond to Gazette questions about why the incident was not publicized.
“I’m very disappointed in what the detective did in that [Mission Hill] case,” Davis said at the press conference about the lack of an arrest of Edwin Alemany. He did not identify the detective, and Fiandaca declined to do so to the Gazette, saying officers under internal investigation are identified only if they are disciplined as a result.
Alemany, 28, of Boston has been charged with stabbing one South Boston woman, who survived, on July 23. He also is a “person of interest” in that same day’s killing of Amy E. Lord, a South Boston woman who was beaten, kidnapped, forced to withdraw money from several ATMs, then stabbed to death and left in a wooded area of Hyde Park.
The 2012 Mission Hill attack was discovered in a police review of similar assaults and robberies, Davis said. According to a police report provided to the Gazette by BPD, the victim said she was attacked from behind while walking home and strangled by a man who stole her purse. She said she fell to the ground and grabbed an unknown object before she was knocked out. When she regained consciousness, she found that she “had a wallet not belonging to her with an Identification Card” and personal papers, the report says. She was able to provide a partial description of the suspect as a “medium skinned male” about 6 feet tall and wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and dark pants.
Davis said the ID was that of Alemany. Despite that, a detective from the District B-2 Police Station decided he was not a “strong suspect” and that there was no probable cause to arrest him, Davis said. Davis also said that the detective also could not locate Alemany.
“Looking back now on that incident, it’s clear Mr. Alemany is a strong suspect,” Davis said, and that the detective actually did have probable cause to arrest him.
However, Alemany has not been charged in the Mission Hill case at this point.