New Bedford Police Investigating Bodies Found Near Palmer Island

NEW BEDFORD — New Bedford police are investigating two bodies found on or near Palmer Island and the hurricane barrier on Easter Sunday — the second and third bodies found in the city in the past five days.

Police spokesman Lt. Scott Carola confirmed that there is an ongoing death investigation involving two people.

No foul play is currently suspected, Carola stated.

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Carola did not provide any further details, and the Bristol County District Attorney's Office could not be reached for further information.

These are the second and third bodies to turn up in the city in five days, after the body of 66-year-old Janet Roderiques was found at Buttonwood Park on Wednesday morning.

Roderiques had been missing out of Dartmouth since last Sunday.

The incident also marks the latest in a string of fatal incidents across the SouthCoast in the past two weeks.

In late March, two people were killed in a rooming house fire in New Bedford's North End.

Then in the first week of April, a Raynham woman was killed in a hit-and-run crash on Rt. 24, and a Wareham man lost his life in a rollover crash on I-195 in Marion.

Just a few days later, Fall River police pulled a city man's body out of the Taunton River, and a UMass Dartmouth student was killed in a crash on campus.

Finally, on Friday night, a Mattapoisett man was killed in a fatal shooting in Rochester.

The Victims in the New Bedford Highway Murders

The New Bedford highway murders took place in 1988, with the bodies discovered into 1989. The killer is confirmed to have killed nine women and suspected of murdering at least two more. Although there were at least three different men considered as suspects by the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office, the murders remain unsolved and the families of the victims are still searching for closure. The cases are all featured on the unsolved cases page of the Bristol County District Attorney's Office website.