On the night of Aug. 14, in 1985, Kimberly Rene Caciola reportedly drove to her office at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River to pick up some items that she had left behind. When she returned to her home at around midnight, her two children were still asleep upstairs but her husband, Vincent Paul Caciola, was nowhere to be found.
Missing also were his motorcycle helmet, brown leather boots, gold-rimmed prescription glasses, a denim jacket and a tan wallet.
Two days later, a trash crew worker found Vincent Caciola’s body next to a dirt road in a small area leading to Fisherman’s Point, on a secure area of the air station.
The death was ruled a homicide. Investigators determined that Caciola had been drugged and strangled. The slaying occurred roughly during the same time frame in which his wife said she had last seen him alive, according to members of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service Cold Case Unit and St. Mary’s County Bureau of Investigations.
Police said the 32-year-old Vincent Caciola didn’t have any known enemies. He was an electrical engineer with a degree from the University of Maryland and a new father of a 7-month-old boy. Kimberly Caciola had a son from a previous marriage.
Police theorize that Vincent Caciola was given what would have been a lethal dose of prescription medicine before he was strangled with a boot lace. They believe at least two people were involved, and that someone will come forward 26 years later with information that can help solve Caciola’s slaying.
Anyone with information regarding the death of Vincent Caciola should contact investigators: The St. Mary’s County Bureau of Criminal Investigations Crime Solvers tip line at 301-475-3333 or Detective Clay Saffard at [email protected] or NCIS Special Agent Kaylyn Dueker at [email protected].
