Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha informed lawmakers in May 2024 that his newly formed cold case unit had “effectively solved” two unsolved homicides and had expected to share the findings of its investigations within six weeks.
Six weeks turned into a year and a half. But on Wednesday, Neronha finally delivered results and closure — but no arrests — for the families of Debra Stone and Cynthia McKenna.
“These cases are not related, other than in the sense that the finality that all of us in law enforcement hope to bring to victims that have been long delayed,” Neronha told a dozen reporters gathered at a conference room at his South Main Street office in Providence Wednesday morning. “We are delivering that finality today.”
The two cases, both involving the deaths of white women, are the first to be cleared from the more than 150 unsolved homicides the four-person unit has reviewed since 2023. Funding was included in the state’s fiscal 2024 budget and has since been supplemented by a $500,000 federal grant. Until the unit formed, the state lacked coordination between prosecutors and law enforcement agencies in investigating unsolved homicides and missing person cases.
The body of Stone, 24, was found by a group of youths boating in the Narrow River in Narragansett on Sept. 2, 1984. She was wrapped in a floral sleeping bag, tied with rope, and anchored with a cement cinderblock. The state medical examiner determined that the cause of death was asphyxiation by strangulation.
McKenna, 49, was found dead by a family member inside her North Providence apartment on Feb. 21, 2007. The state medical examiner said the cause of death was asphyxiation due to blocked airways. She was found in her bed tightly tucked under bed linens with two pillows over her face. Police said she had been gagged with a sock in her mouth and had tissues in her nostrils.
The two women died 23 years apart, but there are some similarities between their homicide cases. Local police quickly identified a prime suspect in both killings — each a man with the first name Robert — only for their investigations to stall. In McKenna’s case, it was due to limited DNA technology. For Stone’s, it was because of questions about an informant’s credibility following a failed polygraph test.
Assistant Attorney General Jim Baum, who leads the cold case unit, told a crowd of reporters that time ultimately proved key to solving the cases. Over the past two years, the unit reinterviewed numerous witnesses and, in McKenna’s case, secured confirmable DNA evidence to confirm police were indeed on the right track during their initial investigations.
“We conclude that Robert Geremia murdered Debra Stone on Aug. 29, 1984. We concluded that Robert Corry killed Cynthia McKennaon or about Feb. 19, 2007,” he said.
Geremia, who was known to be involved with drug distribution in New York City and had potential mob ties, died of natural causes in 1995. He was 43.
Corry, a former U.S. Marine who served in the Persian Gulf War, died in 2014 at the age of 52.
A daughter’s unending grief
Jaclyn McKenna wiped her eyes as Baum reviewed details of her mother’s death. But she told reporters she’s glad to know there’s finally some accountability — even if her mother’s killer is now dead.
“For 18 years, eight months and nine days, I have mourned my mother, Cindy,” Jaclyn McKenna told reporters after an hourlong presentation. “And although my journey for justice may have wavered, it never stopped.”
Jaclyn prefers to remember her mom as the person who always packed her a brown bag lunch, took her shopping and out for birthday ice creams at Friendly’s and feeding ducks at the park.
McKenna’s case had been included as Five of Clubs in a deck of Rhode Island cold case playing cards published in December 2018.
Investigators in 2007 had quickly zeroed in on Corry, who had a “very confrontational” relationship with McKenna, according to the cold case unit’s report. McKenna had filed domestic violence charges against Corry in 2005, but they were dismissed after McKenna failed to appear in court.
Police could never determine Corry’s exact whereabouts around the time of McKenna’s death.
Another lead surfaced after investigators intercepted letters Corry wrote in late 2007 confessing to the murder to an inmate at the Adult Correctional Institution in Cranston. A handwriting analysis only showed the letter was a “probable” match to Corry, according to the report.
Police tried to obtain a DNA match from an envelope used to mail one of the letters, but Corry’s profile was not in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database. Rhode Island began putting DNA samples into CODIS around 2004 and the database has grown more and more robust over time. The number of DNA profiles in CODIS from people convicted of any felony or crime of violence in Rhode Island grew from 7,800 in 2008 to now over 27,000.
In April 2024, cold case investigators obtained the DNA of a male member of Corry’s family from a bottle discarded in the trash. It was used to produce a Y-STR profile, which focuses on the Y chromosome. A man and his brothers will have the same Y-STR profile as their biological sons, their father and their father’s father. In July 2024, the Rhode Island Department of Health determined that the Y-STR profile detected from the envelope was consistent with the profile of Corry’s relative.
Though grateful to state investigators, Jaclyn said her heart is “far from mended.”
“The truth does not magically bring her back,” she said. “I will forever grieve her loss. Her life mattered and always will.”
‘I’ve been waiting for you’
Stone was last seen by witnesses the night of Aug. 28, 1984, when she had gone to a Johnston apartment complex to see Geremia.
Narragansett police say Geremia confirmed Stone had stopped by his apartment asking to barter a stolen watch for drugs, which he claimed not to have. He said he drove her back to her apartment in Cranston. Other witnesses interviewed then claimed to have seen Stone alive as of Aug. 30, 1984.
“Because of these supposed later sightings of Debra—and because investigators were able to corroborate Geremia’s statements that (1) Debra took a cab to his apartment and (2) she had a stolen watch with her — they did not consider Geremia to be a suspect at the time,” a report released by the cold case unit Wednesday states.
That changed in 1986 when an informant told police he had helped move Stone’s body out of Geremia’s apartment and dump it into the Narrow River. The informant had also corroborated evidence that was not disclosed to the public.
Baum called the informant “a credible witness.” But police at the time did not consider him one, ultimately ending their relationship with him after he failed a polygraph exam — even as he agreed to do another.
“We could not find a reason why we stopped using that major informant,” Baum said. “So there was no activity.”
The Narragansett Police Department reopened the case in 2019, eventually teaming up with the AG’s new cold case unit after its formation in 2023. In 2024, Baum said they managed to track down the informant who remained cooperative.
“The first thing he said to us when he went to his door was, ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’” Baum said.
And despite the passage of time, Baum said the informant’s statements, along with separate ones made by his then-girlfriend, remained consistent and thus provided sufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Geremia murdered Stone.
Stone’s family was not present for Wednesday’s press conference, but Neronha said they were aware of the unit’s findings.
Narragansett Police Detective James Wass, thanked the AG’s office for finally bringing a sense of closure.
“Forty-one years is a long time to wait for answers,” Wass said.
Aspirational timelines
Neronha admitted he acted prematurely when he went public about being close to solving the two cases in his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on May 8, 2024. State House. He said he has had minimal involvement with the cold case unit but had wanted to push the team to make progress.
“A lot of the timelines I am trying to establish are aspirational,” he told Rhode Island Current after the press conference.
The reality of solving cold cases requires a lot of leg work in tracking down past witnesses for new interviews and waiting for labs to confirm forensic tests, Neronha said.
Since its establishment, the cold case unit has identified more than 150 cases. The team is actively investigating 21 homicides. The unit is awaiting forensic genealogy results on three cases, Baum told reporters.
Most cases, Buam said, involve women. He declined to state other demographics.
“Cold cases [unit] does not discriminate,” Baum told reporters.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
