4 Years After, No Leads In Boca Mall Murder Case
BOCA RATON (CBS4)- A South Florida family is marking the fourth anniversary of the death of their loved one in a murder case that remains unsolved.
Four years ago, on March 23rd 2007, Randi Gorenberg was carjacked after leaving the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton just after 1 p.m. After being driven around for a time, Gorenberg was shot and then her body dumped out of her black 2007 Mercedes Benz GL450 SUV. She was left for dead in the parking lot of the South County Civic Center in Delray Beach, police said.
"I never would believe my child would die at the hands of a murderer. Why is life crazy like this," said Gorenberg's mother Idey Elias. "To have you life snuffed out by a murderer by bullets in your head. It blows your mind away. Did she struggle? Someone come from under her car? I see all these things. One person had to see somebody."
At about 1:54 p.m. a witness called 911 saying she heard gunshots and a female being pushed from the passenger side into the parking lot of the South County Civic, located about 5 miles from the mall. Her SUV was found abandoned less than two miles away in a Home Depot parking lot.
At about 1:59 pm, surveillance cameras captured the Mercedes Benz i the front of the Home Depot parking lot. The Home Depot is less than two miles north of where Gorenberg was murdered and is located on the southeast corner of Atlantic Avenue and Jog Road, also in Delray Beach. The vehicle was recovered in the rear parking lot of the Home Depot shortly thereafter.
"There's a lapse in time from when she left the mall to when she came here (civic center parking lot) that we don't know where she went," said detective Michelle Romagnoli with the Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office. "She may have been running other errands that we're just unaware of and someone out there may know."
The last big reported break in the case came in August 2008 when surveillance cameras captured the images of two men using Gorenberg's credit cards in the northeast.
Palm Beach County investigators said someone used Gorenberg's credit cards in Massachusetts and Connecticut. At the time, Gorenberg's mother, Idey Elias, said she was hopeful the new development would help solve her daughter's murder.
"You know they say you feel this pain that feels like a wound inside, but it's worse than that," Elias said to CBS4 two years ago. "It overwhelms your whole body; you're never the same. Inside I'm just broken up, you know, mental things can be worse than physical things sometimes."
Investigators said the credit card purchases took place on August 12, 2008. The first occurred at 1:02 p.m. when two portable Playstation hand held game systems were purchased from a Sears store in the Holyoke Mall in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Twenty minutes later, a food purchase was recorded in West Springfield, Massachusetts and an hour after that, a Playstation 3 Game System was purchased from Toys R Us located in Newington, Connecticut.
Investigators said they didn't know if the men were involved in Gorenberg's murder or whether they just had her stolen credit cards or cloned copies of her stolen credit cards.
In 2008, Gorenberg's husband filed a lawsuit against the owner of the Town Center Mall, Simon Property Group, for negligence for allegedly failing to provide adequate security. Simon has denied wrongdoing and said security was adequate.
Just four months after Gorenberg's murder, another Boca Raton woman, 47-year old Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year old daughter Joey were robbed, bound and killed outside the Town Center Mall. Their bodies were found in Nancy's SUV, parked outside the Sears store at the mall.
After the Bochicchio murders, it was discovered that another woman in August of 2007 was also robbed and kidnapped, but she was released outside of the mall.
Gorenberg was a wife and the mother of two children.
Detectives are seeking hope that someone in the community has information about this case.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Michelle Romagnoli at 688-4065 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-TIPS.
