WORCESTER—In 1997, Jose Salcedo and Sonia Lugo moved their family from their native Yauco, Puerto Rico, to Worcester, seeking a new life in the United States. Lugo’s daughter, Elizabeth Matos, moved with them. Similarly, in 2000, William Vega Sr. brought his son, William Jr., to Worcester from New York City, because he wanted to get the young man away from “fast lane life.”
The hope for a better future ended violently on March 15, 2001, when Matos, 16, and Vega, 19, were shot and killed, in the same neighborhood in which Matos lived and Vega worked. They were found in front of an abandoned auto body shop at 126 Dewey St., which is now the Mt. Zion Sanctuary Assembly church.
Worcester Police Department Public Information Officer Lt. Sean Murtha said the victims were transported to local hospitals, where they were pronounced dead.
“There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting,” Murtha said. “Witnesses reported hearing several gunshots.”
It’s been 23 years, and the case remains open and unsolved.
Matos was an eighth-grade student at Sullivan Middle School and lived in an apartment at 431 Park Ave. Vega worked at a Honey Farms at the corner of Park Avenue and Charlotte Street. The store is now a Family Farms.
According to published reports, around 9 p.m. on March 15, Matos asked her mother if she could go out to use the payphone on the corner. Lugo could see the phone from the apartment and consented. That was the last time she saw her daughter; it was speculated Matos met Vega after he finished a 3-11 p.m. shift at the convenience store.
In fact, a friend of the Vega family in 2002 told reporters she had seen Matos and Vega together at the Honey Farms that night, and a clerk there reported Vega left at 11 p.m. with a “young Puerto Rican woman.”
Around 11:45 p.m., police received a 911 call reporting gunshots. Moments later, a passerby alerted Sgt. Ronald F. Lapointe, who was working an off-duty assignment at the 371 Club, a few blocks away. Lapointe was the first officer to arrive. Witnesses reported that Vega appeared to be lying on top of Matos. According to the medical examiner’s report, Matos was shot twice and died from a gunshot to the head. Vega was shot three times and died from a gunshot in the back.
Police could find no obvious motive for the killings. The victims had not been robbed, and there were no drugs or drug paraphernalia, cell phones, which were less common at that time, or message beepers, that might indicate drug activity. Neither victim was known to Worcester police. Though investigators said there had been sighting of a black car, which they believed the killers traveled in, there were never any arrests.
In the aftermath of the murders, there were rumors that the two had been secretly dating. According to published reports, Matos’ family did not know Vega, and vice versa. However, friends told police the two were just friends, and that Vega knew Matos through her brother, Primitivo, who had spent time with Vega in a Westboro juvenile detention facility.
Sgt. Gary J. Quitadamo told reporters in 2006 that he didn’t believe the shootings were a random act.
“I can confirm that the suspects knew at least one of the victims,” he said at the time. “We believe both these victims were targeted.”
The case remains open and under investigation. If you have information regarding Matos and Vega, please send an anonymous text to 274637 (TIPWPD) or an anonymous web-based message at worcesterma.gov/police. Calls can also be made to the Worcester Police Detective Bureau at 508-799-8651. Information from the Unsolved Worcester podcast with Dan Yeager, and Telegram & Gazette archives were used in this story.
This is the latest in The Worcester Guardian’s series about cold cases – unsolved incidents still under investigation by the Worcester Police Department. According to the WPD’s public information officer, Lt. Sean Murtha, the department has 75 unresolved homicides and 10 missing or endangered persons. The Worcester Guardian’s “Unsolved Chronicles” delves into these cold cases and mysteries that happened in Worcester, Massachusetts. Stay tuned for more in this series.
Christine M. Quirk is the former editor of MotherTown and has written for the Telegram & Gazette, Bay State Parent and Times & Courier. She is a novelist and educator and lives with her family in West Boylston. She can be reached at cmqwriter@gmail.com
