Bob_Ward's Blog

Here is a question I can't get out of my head.

Is Alex Scesny a serial killer?

The 38-year-old Berlin man is charged with raping a girlfriend in a West Boylston motel last year. But investigators say his DNA, collected from the motel, matches DNA in the 1996 murder of a Fitchburg prostitute. Scesny has not yet been charged in the Fitchburg case.

But this has investigators across New England taking a hard look at Scesny for other unsolved prostitute murders.

Already the Worcester County DA is calling Scesny a 'person of interest' in the murders of five Worcester prostitutes dating back to 2003.

And now, the Bristol County DA, Sam Sutter, is publicly saying Scesny is a "possible lead, a break" in one of the most notorious serial killing cases in the state's history: The New Bedford Highway Murders.

In 1988/89 the bodies of 9 women with ties to New Bedford's Weld Square were found along area highways. The remains of two other women have never been found.

At the time of the New Bedford murders, Alex Scesny was just 18 or 19 years old. But age alone does not exclude Scesny. Now we know New Bedford investigators are very interested in Alex Scesny.

I don't think this is a shot in the dark.

In 2002, Alex Scesny was accused of assaulting and raping a woman on Cape Cod. The case never went to trial and the charges were ultimately dropped when the woman died. I'm told her death was NOT related to the case.

But this case, as well as three other assaults that did end up on Scesny's record, plus the Fitchburg murder, plus the West Boylston rape all reveal a history of violence against women.

There is more. In 1997 and 1998 two New Hampshire women who battled drug addiction and prostitution were murdered in Manchester and Auburn. Their names were Mindy West and Rose Miller. Mindy was strangled, the rope still tied tight around her neck when her body was found off Hughes Road. I know the case still haunts Manchester, NH detectives. Those same detectives are now looking into Alex Scesny.

Going back to the five Worcester murders, there is another case that crosses state lines. Wendy Morello was taken from Worcester, but her body was found in Wells, Maine where she was dumped in a plastic trash barrel.

All of these cases, from Fitchburg to New Bedford, from Cape Cod to Wells, Maine and Manchester, New Hampshire cover a vast slice of New England. Some might think it's all too convenient. That one person could not possibly be responsible for so much destruction. Or cover that much ground.

They could be right.

In the meantime, investigators in at least three New England states are working timelines on Alex Scesny, and if there is DNA they are working that too.

It may be some time before I get an answer to my question: is Alex Scesny a serial killer?

Bob Ward