Police pursue links in RI slayings, abduction

Monday, August 12, 2013

Tags:

national/world

JOHNSTON, R.I. -- Police are pursuing the link between two Rhode Island men and the two women found slain in a home from which the toddler son of one victim was kidnapped.

Malcolm Crowell, 22, and Daniel Rodriguez, 27 or 28, were arrested Sunday in the double homicide and abduction of 2-year-old Isaiah Perez. The bodies were discovered about 5:20 a.m. at a home in Johnston, a town of 30,000 residents less than 10 miles from Providence.

The boy was found unharmed around 8:15 p.m. in Providence after a police officer there spotted him walking around a housing project by himself.

Johnston Police Chief Richard S. Tamburini said one of the victims was the child's mother. The names of the dead were not immediately released.

Deputy Police Chief Daniel Parrillo said it was unclear whether the boy's abductor was living in the home, was a guest or was uninvited.

"What he was doing there, we have no idea," Parrillo said earlier on Sunday.

He said both suspects are from Providence, but he would not say why police suspect the two or how they are related to each other or to the victims. He said that one or both may be charged on Monday.

Parrillo said investigators believe the victims were killed between 4:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. and the boy was taken from the home.

Crowell was arrested in Fall River, Mass., Sunday afternoon and Rodriguez was arrested that evening in Providence, Parrillo said.

When the boy went missing, a nationwide Amber Alert was issued that identified the child and also named Crowell as a suspect.