NEW BEDFORD, MASS. (WHDH) - Nearly 34 years later, the suspect in a long cold New Bedford homicide has been identified.
Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn’s office announced Monday that their cold case unit identified Claudio Jorge as the individual responsible for the slaying of Brent Davis, a 20-year-old Newport, RI man gunned down at the Brickenwood Housing Project in New Bedford on October 25, 1991.
Police confirmed that Jorge died in 2006 at the age of 40 while he was being robbed.
The DA’s office said Massachusetts State Police Trooper Katherine Sullivan began giving the 1991 cold case another look in 2020, beginning by trying to determine the identity of a suspect identified by witnesses at the time as “Bobby”, relatives of whom told investigators he was from New York City and was also known as “Reynaldo Suriel”.
Authorities said all attempts to locate this suspect yielded no fruit and so the case went cold with no arrests made.
Believing “Reynaldo Suriel” to be an alias, Sullivan interviewed individuals “who either witnessed the shooting or were associated with the suspect”.
Investigators reported that these interviews produced a number of new pieces of information: that Davis had only been in New Bedford for a few days prior to his murder, that the homicide was the result of “a drug distribution dispute”, that “Bobby” was originally from the Dominican Republic, and that he fled the city immediately following the killing.
One witness, who said he sold cocaine with “Bobby” back in 1991, told police he saw the suspect immediately after the homicide when he allegedly stated that “Davis was dead and that he needed to get out of town.”
A second witness corroborated these statements.
Then police say Sullivan, working with another trooper and a New York Police detective, made contact with a close relative of the suspect who told them “Bobby” and “Reynaldo Suriel” were actually Claudio Jorge and that he had been killed in the Dominican Republic in 2006.
Photos provided by the relative matched a composite sketch produced in 1991.
“The close relative also provided further information to investigators, which showed that ‘Bobby’ was in fact Claudio Jorge and that Claudio Jorge has shot and killed Mr. Davis in 1991,” police said in a statement.
Criminal records from the U.S. Marshals and the New York Police Department showed Jorge had “a lengthy criminal record with narcotics and weapons offenses”, including prison sentences in 1983 and 1988. He was not incarcerated at the time of Davis’ murder, bujt was arrested again in 1992 in New York and deported back to the Dominican Republic in 1998.
A detective from the NYPD traveled to La Vega in the Dominican Republic to see Jorge’s aunt, who confirmed his death, verified with an obituary card. Police showed two witnesses pictures of Jorge they had newly obtained; the witnesses further confirmed Jorge as the suspect they’d seen.
Finally, Sullivan located Davis’ mother to inform her that her son’s killer had been identified and that he was deceased.
“At this point, all investigatory avenues have been exhausted to confirm that Claudio Jorge committed the homicide by firearm of Brent Davis on October 25, 1991 and Jorge is deceased,” police said in a statement.
The cold case is now closed.
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