Family members of a woman who was killed in Bel Air 23 years ago claim that the Bel Air Police Department has given up on finding her killer, but police say they have not forgotten about the case.
It was the town?s last murder case until 23-year-old Patrick John Walker was stabbed to death May 26 in what police say was an incident of road rage. A suspect was quickly apprehended in the killing.
But Nancy Pucci?s murderer has never been brought to justice, and given the circumstances surrounding the investigation, may never be, police admit.
Pucci?s naked body was found in the basement of a house onBedford Drive on Dec. 1, 1983. She had been shot in the head.
Her family was selling the house, and she had just stopped by to pick up mail, said her brother, Richard Bartoli, who lives in Colorado.
He said she would never have gone into the basement willingly.
“She hated basements,” he said.
Pucci?s murder was originally investigated by Joe Swam and Wallace Harwood, then Bel Air detectives. Swam is now the chief of police for the town of Port Deposit in Cecil County, and Harwood has retired. But Bel Air Police Chief Leo Matrangola said his officers have continued where Swam and Harwood left off.
“We have not given up. It?s true that we have a new detective sergeant [Ed Smith], but our deputy chief [Armand Dupre] has been with us for 27 years. He was most likely on the scene. I don?t think we have lost any knowledge of the case, or the ability to follow up on new leads,” said Matrangola, who has led the agency since 1991. “There are no new leads,” he added.
“Ultimately, my impression was that someone said ?move on,? ” said Nancy Pucci?s husband, Fiore Michael Pucci, who now lives in New York. Pucci said he and his children have done their best to move on, and he thinks perhaps the Bel Air Police Department has done the same.
In 1989, a man shot and killed himself after he was cornered by the Pennsylvania state police, who believed he had raped and murdered a woman near Pittsburgh. Bel Air police suspected that he might have also killed 43-year-old Nancy Pucci.
But answers died with him.
“Our investigators could not conclusively say [whether or not he was the killer],” Matrangola said.
Pucci?s family has done everything from offering rewards for information on her killer to bringing in a psychic in an attempt to divine the identity of her killer. Nothing has ever come of their efforts.
“It?s never enough for me,” Bartoli said of the police department?s efforts. “She was a beautiful woman. I think about her almost every day.”
