The most frightening crimes aren’t always committed in dark alleys. Sometimes they happen in the middle of an ordinary afternoon.

People are shopping. Cars are pulling in and out of a crowded parking lot. Parents are walking with their children. Nobody realizes that somewhere among them, something horrific may already be happening.

That is part of what makes the unsolved murders of Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year-old daughter Joey so disturbing nearly two decades later.

On December 12, 2007, Nancy and Joey went to the Town Center at Boca Raton in Florida. They would never make it home.

And somewhere between an afternoon shopping trip and the discovery of their bodies later that night is a mystery investigators have been trying to solve ever since.

 

An Ordinary Wednesday

Nancy Bochicchio was 47 years old. Her daughter Joey was 7 and approaching her eighth birthday.

According to Boca Raton police, surveillance cameras captured Nancy and Joey entering the mall at approximately 2:19 p.m. They left through the same entrance at approximately 3:11 p.m.

Nothing about those times sounds extraordinary.

That’s the point.

Thousands of parents have made that exact walk with their children—out of a mall, across a parking lot and back toward their vehicle without considering that those few hundred feet could be dangerous.

Investigators believe Nancy and Joey were abducted and forced to go to an ATM, where Nancy withdrew $500.

Then there is one detail that becomes even more haunting when you know what happened next.

A 911 call came from Nancy’s cellphone. It disconnected before a dispatcher could answer.

The operator called back. There was no response.

That brief call may have been one of the closest opportunities anyone had to realizing Nancy and Joey were in trouble.

 

The SUV Nobody Knew Was a Crime Scene

Hours passed.

Shortly before midnight, a security guard noticed Nancy’s black 2007 Chrysler Aspen parked on the south side of the Sears department store. The engine was still running.

Police were called.

Inside the vehicle they discovered Nancy and Joey. Both had been bound and shot.

Police said the killer used an unusual combination of restraints and control devices: duct tape, plastic ties, handcuffs and goggles. Their hands, feet and necks had been restrained.

Nancy’s wrist bindings were found broken.

Police have cautioned that there is no direct evidence establishing how they were broken or whether Nancy fought her attacker.

There is another mystery investigators cannot definitively answer: Police do not know exactly where Nancy and Joey were shot or precisely when their SUV was returned to the mall.

That uncertainty creates a disturbing gap in the timeline.

People continued going about their lives around the Town Center while two people who had entered the mall for an ordinary shopping trip were now at the center of a homicide investigation.

 

The Detail That Changes the Entire Story

If the Bochicchio murders had happened in isolation, investigators would already have had a baffling case.

But they didn’t happen in isolation.

Four months earlier, in August 2007, another mother and her 2-year-old son were abducted from the same mall.

That woman survived. The similarities were extraordinary.

She was confronted in her SUV. She was forced to drive to an ATM and withdraw money. She and her child were restrained.

And the attacker used blacked-out swimming goggles. That seemingly bizarre detail would appear again in the Bochicchio case.

Boca Raton investigators have said there were definite links between the August abduction and the murders of Nancy and Joey.

The earlier victim’s survival gave police something Nancy and Joey couldn’t: A witness.

A composite sketch was eventually released showing the man investigators were seeking. The question that has remained ever since is chillingly simple: Who was he?

 

Was Someone Hunting Victims at the Mall?

There was another unsolved killing connected to the Town Center that year.

In March 2007, Randi Gorenberg disappeared after shopping at the mall. She was later found shot to death at a park in Delray Beach.

That means within roughly nine months, three disturbing incidents were connected to the same Boca Raton shopping center.

Gorenberg was murdered. A mother and toddler were abducted and survived. Nancy and Joey Bochicchio were abducted and murdered.

Authorities have examined possible connections among the cases, but the evidence linking them is not equally strong. The similarities between the August abduction and the Bochicchio murders are particularly significant, while investigators have not established through forensic evidence that all three attacks were committed by the same person.

That distinction matters.

An unsolved case creates a vacuum, and theories inevitably rush in to fill it. But theories aren’t evidence.

The known facts are disturbing enough.

 

He Didn’t Need the Darkness

Maybe the most fascinating—and terrifying—part of this case is where it happened.

This wasn’t an isolated highway. It wasn’t a deserted building. It wasn’t the middle of the night. The crucial early events happened around a popular mall during the afternoon.

That changes how you think about the offender.

Whoever abducted Nancy and Joey apparently didn’t need complete isolation to feel comfortable taking control.

He needed opportunity.

The August attacker had already demonstrated an ability to approach a woman with a child, take control of her vehicle, force her to withdraw money and use an unusually elaborate method of restraint.

If investigators are correct that the same offender was responsible for the Bochicchio murders, he returned months later to essentially the same hunting ground.

That’s what separates this case from a random parking-lot robbery.

There appears to have been a method.

 

The $500 Question

Money was taken. But the crime has always seemed larger than a simple robbery.

A person interested only in cash could take money and leave.

Instead, the victims were controlled using multiple restraints. Their vision was intentionally blocked. A mother and child were moved around. And ultimately Nancy and Joey were killed.

Why?

Was money the actual objective? Was robbery simply part of a ritual of control? Did something happen that caused the offender to kill Nancy and Joey when the earlier mother and child were allowed to live? Did Nancy resist? Did the killer believe they had seen or learned something that could identify him?

Those questions remain questions.

They should not be mistaken for conclusions.

But after nearly two decades, understanding why the August victims survived while Nancy and Joey did not may still be one of the most important mysteries surrounding the case.

 

Somewhere, Someone May Know

Hundreds of pieces of evidence were collected. DNA samples were obtained. Thousands of leads have been investigated over the years. The case received national attention.

And still, no arrest.

Boca Raton police have continued to publicly identify the murders as unsolved and have expressed hope that advances in technology can eventually produce a breakthrough.

That may ultimately be where this case is solved.

Cold cases today exist in a different world than they did in 2007. Advances in DNA analysis and other investigative technologies have helped law enforcement revisit evidence that once couldn’t identify anyone.

Evidence doesn’t forget because years have passed.

And neither does a family. Joey should be an adult today. Instead, she is permanently remembered as a 7-year-old girl beside her mother in photographs from 2007.

Nancy should have had the opportunity to watch her daughter grow up. Instead, their names remain attached to one of South Florida’s most haunting unsolved mysteries.

 

The Scariest Part May Be the Simplest

There are endless theories about who committed these crimes. But perhaps the most unsettling possibility doesn’t require an elaborate theory at all.

The person responsible may have looked completely ordinary.

He may have walked through a parking lot without drawing attention. He may have driven through Boca Raton traffic while hundreds of people passed him. He may have gone home afterward and continued living a life in which nobody around him ever suspected what he had done.

Because on December 12, 2007, the danger wasn’t hidden somewhere far away.

It appears to have been sitting in the middle of everyday life. At a mall. In broad daylight. Surrounded by people.

And nearly two decades later, investigators are still trying to put a name to the person who was hiding in plain sight.