Family, friends gather 40 years after Worcester teen’s unsolved murder

By John Atwater

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    WORCESTER, Massachusetts (WCVB) — Forty years after the rape and killing of Patricia Gonyea, family members and childhood friends gathered in Worcester on Tuesday to keep her memory alive and ask anyone with information to come forward.

“She made an impact. I mean, she was special. They killed one of God’s angels,” said Frank Gonyea, her younger brother.

On Oct. 22, 1984, Patricia Gonyea, 17, called her mother to say she’d be late coming home from her boyfriend’s. She got off a bus on Main Street in Worcester around 11 p.m., her home just a short walk away, but her family and friends never saw her alive again.

The next day, family and police discovered her belongings and then her naked body in a window well of a factory near Grand Street. She was just about two blocks away from home.

Every year, her family and friends gather to remember the teen they knew as Patty Ann. They listen to her favorite song, “Purple Rain,” and release paper lanterns in her honor.

Mostly, they hope each year will be the last year without answers.

“Oh, I do miss her. She would have done amazing things in life. I know she would have,” her brother said.

Patricia Gonyea’s mother died in 2010 without knowing who killed her daughter.

Over the years, NewsCenter 5 has reported on the case several times.

In 2018, we spoke with Worcester police detectives Bill Donovan and Dan Sullivan, who both grew up in the city and remember the crime.

“It’s definitely someone who knew the area, an opportunity arose, and they did something horrible,” Donovan said in that interview.

Investigators kept a lot of evidence from the crime scene, so police have completed testing over the years.

Last year, childhood friends said they hoped forensic genetic genealogy, a technology used to solve numerous other crimes, could help to crack this case.

So far, it remains unsolved.

“It’s been all these years, and we have no results on everything,” said Lisa Brick, a childhood friend of Patricia Gonyea.

“If you know something, say something. You don’t have to be known to police. You can call anonymously,” said Patti L’Ecuyer, another friend.

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