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Convicted rapist charged with woman's 1988 murder in a factory basement on the South Boston waterfront
By adamg on Mon, 09/06/2021 - 11:56am
A man already locked up because of a 1987 rape in Revere now faces charges he raped and murdered a woman 11 months later in a building in what was then the industrial South Boston waterfront, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.
According to the DA's office, Richard Vega, now 59, raped and strangled Judy Chamberlain in the former Fargo Building, 451 D St. in what is now called the Seaport. On July 21, 1988, a construction worker found her body in a water pipe in the basement after hearing water in the pipe making a strange sound. At the time, the Globe reported authorities estimated the murder had occurred a few hours earlier.
DNA evidence first linked Vega to Chamberlain's death in 2011, but prosecutors did not feel they had enough additional evidence to bring him to trial for her murder. The DA's office says a cold-case unit in its office began re-examining her case, one of roughly 1,300 unsolved Suffolk County murders, and found enough evidence to bring Vega to trial. The office did not specify what sort of evidence it found.
In 1990, Vega was sentenced to 19 1/2 to 20 years in prison for raping an elderly woman in 1987, when she came up from Texas to visit her son in Revere. In 2008, a jury found him to still be "sexually dangerous," and he has remained "civilly committed" since then, the DA's office reports.
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"Desolate" ?
By anon on Mon, 09/06/2021 - 1:09pm.
I worked in the Fargo Building in the 70s and 80s, although by the time of this murder I worked in a different building in the same area. It was actually quite vibrant. Lots of warehouses and manufacturing. Mostly blue collar jobs. Very different than today but hardly desolate .
Voting closed 26
By adamg on Mon, 09/06/2021 - 3:19pm.
I was thinking of the acres upon acres of parking lots - a fair number of which were for people flying out of Logan.
1987 - Parking Lots for Logan?
By John Costello on Mon, 09/06/2021 - 3:24pm.
Ted Williams Tunnel didn't open until 1995. If you were parking around D Street in 1987 to go to Logan you might has well parked in East Somerville by the Holiday Inn.
There was plenty of businesses around the Fargo building in 1987. Was it quiet on a Sunday?, Yes, but not desolate.
Y'know, you could get to Logan before the Ted
By adamg on Mon, 09/06/2021 - 11:05pm.
In the late 1970s McCourt acquired 24 acres (97,000 m2) in South Boston from the bankrupt Penn Central railroad and developed the L-shaped property into parking lots.
Some Of Us Actually Lived Here In 1987
By John Costello on Tue, 09/07/2021 - 8:52am.
Nobody parked in South Boston to get to the airport.
People like me actually used to park in those McCourt lots, to work downtown. If you had to park at Logan you parked at the Massport lots or the Park N Fly lots where the library and charter school is now or in Chelsea along the water.
Stop acting so petulant and admit you are wrong. It increases your credibility instead of trying to one up someone for your own sense of ego.
There were some dirt "parking lots"
They were just dirt fields, not maintained by anyone. They were located on Congress St just past the Boston Wharf buildings We just parked there. My Datsun 310 never got towed. I never paid.
These days its like a whole new city from another planet.
Is it time...
By onelith on Mon, 09/06/2021 - 2:55pm.
Is it time to lock him up and throw away the key?
What happened to the trial
What happened to the trial before judgement?
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