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Thomas C. Olson
Lic. Funeral Director
Family Owned and Operated
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62 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l
Louise Parent Olson
Co-Founder
JANUARY 2020
crime scenes. John Leatherwood, king
of diamonds, worked in Mayor Vincent
Cianci’s office, a well-liked, well-dressed
man who was stabbed to death, likely a
hate crime, she says, his body dumped
behind one of the fireplaces used by fami-
lies barbecuing on summer afternoons in
Pawtucket’s Veteran’s Park.
We drive on. Donna Tattersall, queen
of spades, sexually assaulted, strangled,
her body found one August day in 1979
behind 67 Park Place in Pawtucket. Carl
Seebeck, king of hearts, shot to death on
Broadway in Pawtucket, on his usual
walk to a bus stop to get to work in Provi-
dence. Jocelyn McCready, eight of clubs,
her body found wrapped in a tarp in the
middle of Grand Avenue, Pawtucket,
beaten, strangled and pregnant.
I ask specifics of the cases, but Cormier
is politely tight lipped, revealing nothing.
She can’t share information even with
families, which is hard, she says, because
she puts herself in their place as a mother,
a sister, a daughter, a spouse, she knows
they want and need to know, but recog-
nizes she cannot jeopardize the investi-
gation by giving out information they
might spill in all innocence.
“It’s so hard, you know this is so impor-
tant to them, but I can’t tell them. I just say,
‘You have to trust me,’ and I like to think
they can see it in my eyes,” says Cormier,
frustration and empathy in her voice.
“We’ve gained ground, I tell them. It’s all
I can do. It’s all I can tell them. It’s hard.”
Sue Anthony is sixty, born a dozen years
after her aunt, Rita Bouchard, was savagely
slain in 1947. Bouchard, then seventeen, is
the oldest case in the deck. Anthony lived
thirty-eight years in Rhode Island, but
moved to South Carolina. Occasionally
she’d Google her aunt’s name to see if any-
thing was new. When she happened on
Cormier’s work, she reached out. Cormier
reached back. Anthony made the trip back
home to meet the detective.
“I hugged her so hard, she hugged me,”
Anthony says. “You talk about people
who care; that’s Detective Cormier, she’s
so kind and gracious. I’m not a stalker
but I told her ‘I’ll follow you forever.’ She’s
the real deal.”
Patrice Morris is the kid sister of Lauren
Morris, the ten of hearts, who was found
floating in Spectacle Pond in Cranston
in 1988. Patrice was twelve at the time,
Lauren, eighteen, the family living in
Bristol.