Interesting Detail in Presti Slaying
Maggie
*she* is the one who fed the press and the police the information about Presti
supposedly being afraid of her ex-husband. From the Boston Globe:
Sex offender arrested in Woburn slayings
By Michael S. Rosenwald and Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff, 1/17/2004
An unemployed convicted sex offender from Lowell was arrested yesterday on
charges that he raped and murdered Joanne C. Presti and then killed her
12-year-old daughter, Alyssa, by slashing her throat in their Woburn home
earlier this month.
Michael Bizanowicz, 41, was arrested by State Police from the Middlesex
district attorney's office and Woburn police after investigators linked his DNA
to seminal fluids recovered from the body of Joanne Presti, according to
Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley and Woburn Police Chief Philip
Mahoney.
Bizanowicz is registered with the state as a Level 3 sex offender, the category
of sex offenders considered at highest risk for reoffending. He was acquainted
with Presti, but she apparently didn't know he was a sex offender, Coakley
said.
Investigators said Bizanowicz drew their attention after the bodies of Presti
and Alyssa were discovered Jan. 7 in their house, in part because authorities
recovered photographs featuring the three of them. Coakley said police had
interviewed him early in the investigation, but it was the DNA that linked him
to the crime.
Bizanowicz is the father of a young child whose mother, Bobbi-Jo Miller, lives
three houses away from the Prestis, and was a close friend of Joanne Presti,
one law enforcement official said. Miller has been cooperating with
investigators and did not return phone messages from Globe reporters seeking
comment late yesterday.
Bizanowicz got to know Presti within the last year and was last seen in the
neighborhood in November, authorities said, noting that Bizanowicz said he was
familiar with the home and its layout.
A stocky man, 5 feet 6 and weighing 210 pounds, he was convicted of raping a
child in March 1989, according to the state's registry of sexual offenders.
Bizanowicz faces two counts of murder and an aggravated rape charge and will be
arraigned Tuesday in Woburn District Court.
The murders of 34-year-old Joanne Presti and her daughter shattered their
neighborhood. "He took a knife and stabbed us right in the heart of this
community," said Mahoney at a news conference last night.
Joanne Presti's older brother, Peter, said yesterday that his family was
"relieved the killer has been found."
"We're pleased to hear this guy is off the street," he said. "We don't want him
to be able to do this to anyone else."
He confirmed that his sister knew the suspect but said, "We don't know how. She
mentioned him once to my cousin. She didn't say much about him."
The bodies of Joanne Presti and Alyssa were discovered inside their Totman
Drive home Jan. 7, three days after Joanne Presti was last heard from,
authorities said. Police were called by Presti's parents, who became worried
after not being able to contact her.
Police found Joanne Presti dead of a blow to the head and multiple stab wounds,
and Alyssa's throat was slashed, authorities said.
Presti's 2 1/2-year-old son Sean was also found in the apartment, unharmed but
undernourished, according to Coakley's office. Presti's 10-year-old son,
Justin, was not in the apartment at the time of the slayings. He had moved out
last year to live with his father in Revere.
Investigators believe the slayings occurred sometime late the evening of Jan. 4
or early Jan. 5, according to Coakley. There were no signs of forced entry into
the house.
Investigators believe that Bizanowicz sexually assaulted Joanne Presti and then
killed her. Coakley and Mahoney said Alyssa may have heard or seen something,
and Biazanowicz killed her to prevent her from identifying him.
Joanne Presti's cause of death was multiple stab wounds, with blunt head trauma
as a contributing factor, authorities said. Alyssa died from "incised wounds to
the neck," a written statement handed out at the press conference said.
Joanne Presti's three children were fathered by different men, and authorities
questioned the fathers. But in recent days law enforcement sources said the
case was leading away from the fathers as suspects. Thomas Pollak, Sean's
father; former Boston Bruins winger John Carter, Alyssa's father; and Frank
Martineau, Justin's father, denied involvement in the crime, officials said.
Pollak, reached last night at his home in Greenville, Del., expressed outrage
that Miller had publicly said Joanne Presti lived in fear of him.
In 2001, Presti obtained a restraining order against Pollak, to whom she was
then married, saying he hit her with a telephone and tried to choke her. "I am
in complete and utter shock," said Pollak, who was interviewed by New Castle
County Police in Del. at the request of Massachusetts law enforcement
officials. "I cannot believe that that Jo Miller woman sat there saying that I
was the man, that I was the one that Joanne was afraid of."
On July 31 last year, Miller wrote a letter to a Massachusetts court to support
Presti's bid to keep custody of her son, Justin, during a custody dispute with
Martineau. In the letter, Miller said she and Presti were "neighbors as well as
very good friends," and described Presti as a "wonderful parent." Coakley said
yesterday's arrests came as a result of a DNA match made through the
Massachusetts CODIS database. Seminal fluids recovered from Presti's body were
processed by the state police laboratory and entered into a DNA profile in the
CODIS system.
Late yesterday afternoon, the crime laboratory alerted the district attorney's
Office that the sample matched the DNA of Bizanowicz. Officers then brought the
suspect to the Woburn police department shortly after learning of the match and
arrested Bizanowicz about 5 p.m.
Coakley said investigators weren't close to solving the crime until they linked
the suspect through his DNA.
The state's sex offender board categorizes convicted sex offenders in one of
three levels. Level 1 is for people who are not likely to commit a sex crime
again, Level 2 for those at moderate risk to reoffend, and Level 3 for those
highly likely to offend again. The state provides information only on Level 2
and Level 3 offenders on its website. Peter Presti recently described his
sister as the center of an exceptionally tight-knit family that includes her
parents, three brothers, and dozens of cousins."We're still mourning," he said
yesterday. "This week has had a tremendous range of emotion." Neighbors of
Presti were stunned by yesterday's arrest. A woman who has lived on Totman
Drive for 31 years -- and rented an apartment to Presti and her children for
years until they moved across the street recently -- said, "Nothing has ever
happened on this street before. Nothing . . . . I could leave the doors
unlocked."
The woman, who insisted on anonymity, said she could still picture Presti
living there. "It's horrible," she said. "She was young, and the kids were so
innocent."
Ralph Ranalli and Douglas S. Belkin of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent
Heather Allen contributed to this article.
Maggie
"Here’s a quick note from the estate of the late Senator Strom Thurmond –
Happy Kwanzaa!" -- Jay Leno
Mke
"Maggie" <maggi...@aol.comSPAMBLOC> wrote in message
news:20040117095608...@mb-m16.aol.com...
> Happy Kwanzaa!" -- Jay Leno
>
reason. Wonder if you read the Herald story from this am.
Michael Bizanowicz neighbor had this to say.
``He didn't seem like a bad person,'' Dolly said. ``The only thing that
bothered me was that he was a child molester.''
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/localRegional.bg?articleid=1298&format
Wonder what she thinks of him now?
Glad they caught the creep.
Mke
Maggie
>I saw that this am, I never bought in to the ex Pollak for some
>reason.
***Yep--too much time had passed. It didn't make sense.
Wonder if you read the Herald story from this am.
>Michael Bizanowicz neighbor had this to say.
> ``He didn't seem like a bad person,'' Dolly said. ``The only thing that
>bothered me was that he was a child molester.''
>http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/localRegional.bg?articleid=129
8&format
***I hadn't read it, but it was interesting--particularly the following
paragraphs:
Bizanowicz has a daughter with Bobbi Jo Miller, who lives across the street
from Presti, 34. Miller and Presti were close friends, and sources say there is
some speculation Bizanowicz might have gone over to help with a plumbing
problem at Presti's house, sources said. Presti had complained to her landlord
about a clogged drain the night before she was killed.
and
Purkar said Miller and Presti were friends and Presti and her children would
often come across the street for visits and dinner. Bizanowicz would sometimes
babysit Presti's children, said Purkar.
``They knew each other good,'' said Purkar. ``They used to eat and
come over and visit together. They used to be pretty close.''
***That girlfriend of Bizanowicz *had* to have known he had means and
opportunity for this sort of thing, yet she was trying to implicate the
ex-husband. What a low life! And I wonder if she told her "friend," Presti,
about her ex-beau's conviction for child rape before Presti had him babysit her
children. But mostly I wonder if she's done anything here that's actually
criminal because I'd like to see her pushed around a little bit.
>
>Wonder what she thinks of him now?
>Glad they caught the creep.
>Mke
***Yep.
Maggie
"Here’s a quick note from the estate of the late Senator Strom Thurmond –