It’s been 20 years since Fred Cunha has spoken to his younger sister, Rose Marie Moniz, one of six kids in their close-knit family.
The Bristol County District Attorney says Rose was brutally murdered in her Acushnet Ave home in March of 2001.
Her lifeless body on the bathroom floor was discovered by her father the next morning while picking her up for a doctor’s appointment.
The autopsy revealed that she was struck in the head with a fire poker, a conch shell, and a cast iron tea kettle.
Her purse was also emptied on the floor.
Money was stolen.
Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn III said the motive appeared to be robbery.
More than one hundred people were interviewed for the crime, but the family was left with no answers, distraught by not knowing who killed her.
The case went cold for two decades, until now.
Investigators re-opened the case in 2019, pouring over evidence and re-testing the conch shell for forensic evidence, specifically the inner areas of it where his fingers could have reached.
In a shocking revelation, the DNA matched Rose’s half-brother, David Reed, who was in the database already for a prior case of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and bail violation.
He traveled all over the country for years until Providence police arrested captured him last month at the Providence Rescue Mission shelter.
Cunha said there has been a misconception that Rose's son was involved with the murder.
“For the last 20 years there’s been a cloud hanging over my nephew's head. People in their minds thought it must be him because he was in the houseI just want them to know and will take every opportunity that I can to get the word out there that they have who killed him and he had nothing to do it," he said.
Cunha hasn’t spoken to his half-brother in years but remembers Reed was a pallbearer at Rose's funeral.
“We had other people that we thought it might be, who actually threatened Rose. It turned out that the person carrying her coffin to the grave was the person that killed her,” he said.
David Reed is currently being held in jail for that other case but will be arraigned in Fall River for the new murder indictment next week.
Fred Cunha and his whole family plan to be there for it.