Cop who probed string of luxury Florida mall murders and kidnappings shares chilling theory

A retired FBI agent now believes a spate of disturbing crimes in a South Florida community could all be connected and the culprit is still at large.

The incidents, all occurring in 2007 at the Boca Raton Town Center Mall, include the murders of Randi Gorenberg, Nancy and Joey Bochicchio, and the kidnapping of a woman and her toddler.

Retired FBI Agent John MacVeigh, who worked these cases for ten years, described the horrific nature of the crimes to Fox News Digital and said he thinks the perpetrator is still on the loose.

Randi Gorenberg, 52, was last seen leaving the mall on March 23, 2007. Shortly after, gunshots were reported, and Gorenberg's body was found at Governor Lawton Chiles Memorial Park, having been thrown from a moving vehicle. 

MacVeigh noted evidence suggested she resisted her attacker.

'It does appear that she resisted at some point,' MacVeigh told Fox. 'She was shot and basically thrown out the car while the suspect drove away.' 

Less than five months later, on August 7, 2007, a woman, who has remained anonymous, and her two-year-old child were kidnapped from the same mall's parking lot. 

MacVeigh described the play-by-play of the incident: 'She puts her son from the passenger side into the center car seat. She walks around to the trunk. She opens the trunk. She puts the stroller in. She walks back around. As she opens the door to get in the driver's seat, the suspect had already jumped in the back passenger seat. Now, you're talking seconds … so he had to be extremely close to her.'

The suspect then forced her to drive to an ATM and withdraw $600. 

In an unusual turn of events, the kidnapper returned the mother and son to the mall, blindfolded and handcuffed her, and then fled. 

MacVeigh called the abduction 'blatant and bizarre', emphasizing the unusual decision to return the victims to the scene.

Just four months later, Nancy and Joey Bochicchio were targeted at the same mall on December 12, 2007. Investigators believe they were abducted from the parking lot, forced to withdraw $500 from an ATM, and then murdered. 

Their bodies were discovered in their car, still running, in the mall parking lot. 

MacVeigh believes Nancy Bochicchio resisted, attempting to free her daughter before they were both shot.

'Nancy resists. She breaks her handcuffs. We do believe that she tried to get Joey out of the car, and then he turned around and shot both of them,' MacVeigh said. 

Now a private investigator, MacVeigh told Fox Digital that he sees clear patterns linking these crimes. 

He believes the suspect targeted and sought to control women, pointing to the repeated use of restraints like blacked-out swim goggles. 

'It's just so hard to believe that it's not the same person,' MacVeigh said. 'Three of these incidences … in the same area, and very similar. Here you have a very affluent mall… and, you know, you are targeting people that you suspect have money.'

The timing of the attacks - all in broad daylight within a similar timeframe – further strengthens his conviction that the crimes are connected.

Despite a task force being formed and later disbanded, and despite extensive investigation involving thousands of interviews and the collection of DNA evidence, the cases remain unsolved. 

'We sent agents to the mall because they were interested in trying to find out if maybe it was somebody that had worked there,' MacVeigh said. 

'We issued subpoenas, and we went door to door. It was pretty overwhelming because you don't realize how many people work at that mall. And I think the number when we were done was somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,000,' he added. 

A composite sketch of the suspect, based on the kidnapping victim's description, proved too generic to be of much use. 

'You and I could both be that composite. I mean, it's just you have a hat on with glasses and all you're seeing is the bottom part of the face,' MacVeigh explained about the drawing's details 

While two persons of interest were identified in the Bochicchio case, no arrests have been made.

MacVeigh remains convinced that the same individual committed all three crimes. 

'It's not a small little coincidence. There's not... one or two small things. This is an accumulation of things,' he said.

The Boca Raton Police Department has acknowledged the possible link between the Bochicchio murders and the carjacking on their website. 

Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Detective William Springer is the lead detective on the Gorenberg case. 

Last year he spoke with WPTV and said: 'Are they all three connected? There's a possibility,' Springer said. 'I mean, you look at the odds of, what's the possibility of three people being taken from the mall in the same year?' 

He says he's kept an open mind about who is responsible but continues to come back to looking at the similarities in the cases. 

'The one (theory) I keep coming back to is that they're all three connected, that whoever was doing it had picked the Town Center mall as a place where there's a great hunting ground for victims,' Springer said. 

'If you want to look at similarities, there was no apparent sexual assault or attempted sexual battery of any of the victims,' he added.

'Randi could have been just a learning experience,' Springer said. 

'Maybe he had everything set to do that and then it fell through. So, then he thought, 'Well if I take a woman with a little child, I can control them a lot easier than I could a single woman who's probably going to fight.''

MacVeigh warns that despite increased security at the mall, the perpetrator likely remains free and that these cases must be solved to bring justice to the victims' families.