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DNA match found for perpetrator of decades-old murder, rape in Brockton, DA says
Investigators long knew that the two cases were connected, but were unable to match the DNA sample from the crime scene.
After more than three decades without answers, prosecutors say they’vee identified the perpetrator of a 1991 murder and a 1993 rape, both in Brockton.
Robert Carey, a former Brockton resident, was found to have strangled Cherie Bishop to death in 1991 and raped Donna Bell in 1993, the office of Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz said in a press release Thursday. Charges can not be pressed against Carey because he died in June 2025, Cruz’s office said.
“For decades, the Bishop and Bell families were deprived of the full story of what happened to their loved ones,” Cruz said in the release. “It was a lengthy process to identify Robert Carey, but it is my sincere hope that knowing his name and bringing his heinous actions to light will bring a sense of closure and peace to the Bishop and Bell families.”
Carey was linked to the crimes through a DNA sample match, according to prosecutors. Investigators determined that at the time of the attacks, he lived within a mile and a half of both crime scenes.
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Bishop’s naked body was found in Mulberry Park on June 25, 1991, and she was found to have been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. Over the past 35 years, Brockton police and Massachusetts State Police conducted extensive investigative work in an attempt to identify her killer, prosecutors said.
On April 4, 1993, Bell was walking on Annis Avenue when a man driving a van, later determined to be Carey, grabbed her. He threatened to strangle her with an electric wire and sexually assaulted her before grabbing a sharp object, according to the DA’s office.
Fearing that Carey was going to stab her, Bell grabbed the object, which sliced into her right hand. She jumped out of the van, screamed for help, and was eventually found by two Brockton police officers a few streets away, the DA’s office said. Bell died in 2021.
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Samples from Bishop’s sexual assault kit produced a full but unknown male DNA profile. In 2016, they were linked to samples taken from Bell’s sexual assault kit, according to prosecutors.
The DA’s office got help from Texas-based biotech company Othram Research in March 2023. The company collected forensic genealogical DNA data, specifically a sample from the Bishop homicide, to conduct genetic reference testing.
Through further testing in 2025, genealogists at Othram identified a family tree and eventually a specific profile, which they determined was a statistical match to the DNA evidence. Testing of other evidence from the cases corroborated theories that Carey was the perpetrator, according to the DA’s office.
In the years leading up to this discovery, Carey resided at the Brockton Veteran Administration Medical Center. He died of natural causes at age 64 in June 2025, prosecutors said.
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