Cold Case Unit IDs Suspects in Two Murders

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha’s Cold Case Unit, launched in 2023, announced this week that it has closed two long-unsolved homicides: Debra Stone (1984) and Cynthia McKenna (2007). Stone’s body was recovered in Narrow River in 1984, wrapped in a sleeping bag and anchored with a cinder block; the medical examiner ruled strangulation, and investigators say Robert D. Geremia (aka Bobby Myers) was identified by an informant and corroborated through re-interviews of witnesses; Geremia died in 1995 and cannot be charged. McKenna was found in her North Providence apartment in February 2007 with asphyxia from airway obstruction, and investigators identified a man known as “Gunner,” later named Robert Corry Jr., as the suspected killer. The Cold Case Unit re-examined evidence, re-interviewed dozens of witnesses (32 in Stone’s case), and used DNA and traditional investigative work where available to corroborate accounts and reach conclusions. Officials said the findings deliver long-sought answers and hoped to provide some closure for the victims’ families, even though prosecutions are not possible in at least one case.