Copyright The Boston Globe
In the separate case of Cynthia McKenna, a 49-year-old mother and grandmother asphyxiated with her own sock in her apartment, it was a troubled drug-using man she still cared about. The detectives in Narragansett and North Providence who investigated the cases back then questioned dozens of witnesses and collected evidence, essentially building a virtual road map that pointed to the suspected killers. But, there wasn’t enough to bring charges. Both suspects eventually died. Law enforcement can’t arrest the dead, but they can still bring justice and answers. On Wednesday, Attorney General Peter F. Neronha announced that his office’s cold case unit had definitively proven who had killed the two women. Robert D. Geremia, who died in 1995, strangled Stone when she visited his apartment in Johnston for drugs in August 1984. He and another man bundled up her body and tossed her off of Middle Bridge into the Narrow River, where she was later found by two juveniles on a boat. Robert J. Corry Jr., who died in 2014, killed McKenna in her apartment in February 2007, two years after he’d been arrested and charged with assaulting her. They had a tumultuous romantic relationship that involved abuse and prescription drug use. These cold cases — among more than 150 in Rhode Island documented by the cold case unit — are finally closed. But for McKenna’s daughter, there will never be closure. “For 18 years, eight months, and nine days, I have mourned my mother, Cindy, and although my journey for justice may have wavered, it never stopped,” said Jaclyn McKenna. “Today there is accountability, and today we begin to heal. ... A mother of three and a grandmother of one, she deserved better.” McKenna said she was grateful for the work of the North Providence police and the attorney general’s office, and she vowed to continue to advocate for other victims of domestic violence, who “should never be silenced.” “My heart is not suddenly mended. The truth does not magically bring her back,” McKenna said. “I will forever grieve her loss. Her life mattered and always will.” Assistant Attorney General James R. Baum, the deputy chief of the criminal division who leads the cold case unit, described the team of prosecutors and retired law enforcement as a “collection of like-minded people.” “We have experience pulling apart and putting back together difficult cases,” Baum said. “Our motto is, assume nothing. So any case ... we take it like we are investigating it and prosecuting it from the beginning.” Since the cold case unit was formed in 2023, the members have worked with local police departments and undergone specific training in new investigative methods involving forensic genealogy, behavioral analysis, and DNA technology. The methods solving these old cases are a combination of old-school shoe leather investigations — talking to witnesses and former detectives, re-examining evidence — and advances in modern forensic technology. In McKenna’s case, the investigators had several witnesses tell them that Corry – a disabled Marine Corps veteran who went by the nickname “Gunner” – had a tumultuous relationship with her. The manager of the building where McKenna lived told police that he’d had to change her locks because she said that she and Corry were “at odds.” A friend told police that McKenna was afraid of Corry because he’d assaulted her. Corry was questioned in March 2007 about the homicide, and while he was challenged about various inconsistencies in his statements, the detectives didn’t have probable cause to arrest him. However, his own handwriting and a recent analysis identifying his DNA on a sealed envelope led the cold case team to determine that Corry had killed McKenna, Baum said. In 2007, the Adult Correctional Institutions intercepted two letters sent to one of Corry’s relatives from a “Bob Corry” at the address of a Veterans Home in New Bedford, Mass. In one sent Oct. 24, 2007, the writer said he had “not been doing good at all since I did that to that crack head[.] and that he “did not mean for her to die[,]” but if she hadn’t attempted to steal pills from him, it “would of not happen” (sic). The writer added, “I know North Providence would love to nail me so I have to be careful.” Corry had been living at that Veterans Home, according to the investigation. The Connecticut Division of Scientific Services Forensic Science Laboratory did a handwriting comparison with samples of Corry’s handwriting, and in January 2009, the analyst reported that it was “probable” that the letters “shared common ownership” with Corry. While there was male DNA on the envelope, Corry’s DNA profile was not in the Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, which is a national DNA database maintained by the FBI. So, there wasn’t enough to charge Corry back then. In 2024, a decade after Corry’s death, the investigation was reopened. The attorney general’s cold case task force and the North Providence police turned to forensic document examiner and handwriting analyst J. Michael Weldon, who reviewed the letters and determined they were written by Corry, Baum said. The R.I. Department of Health conducted DNA testing of a male relative of Corry, using Y-STR testing analyzing the Y chromosome to compare with the Y-STR profile found on the envelope. This type of exam shows whether there is a connection to males in the same family. “We wanted to definitively prove that Robert Cory sent that letter,” Baum said. “That letter was a key piece of evidence.” The test found that the DNA Y-STR sample from an envelope was “consistent” with that of Corry’s male relative, a finding the team considers definitive proof it was sent by Corry. In Stone’s case, re-interviewing the key witnesses paid off. Multiple people had told police she visited Robert D. Geremia, a feared and violent drug dealer, at his apartment on Aug. 28, 1984. One informant told police at the time that he’d seen Stone gurgling from her throat on a bed in Geremia’s apartment that night. The next day, he said, he helped move her body from the apartment to the river. Another witness said at the time that Geremia said he “had to” kill Stone because she was stealing from him. But the informant who had helped move Stone’s body took a polygraph and failed when he was asked whether he was present for her death; he just wasn’t sure she was dead, Baum said. Because of that, the police stopped using the main informant, and the case eventually went cold. But, when the police and the cold case team re-opened the investigation, they found the witnesses’ memories were still consistent. There was still a stain in the carpet, all these years later, where fluid had leaked from Stone’s throat as her body was being moved. And, the main informant who’d seen Stone that night and helped move her body never forgot. Baum said that when the investigators came to his door all these years later, he told them, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
