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November 13, 2009

Mystery lingers in Alice Nunes case

Discovery of Lexus 'does bring some closure,' police say

By Matthew K. Roy

PEABODY — John Nunes and the man he hired to find his missing wife began their search of Flax Pond in Lynn shortly after noon on Tuesday.

They rode in a borrowed Whaler with $60,000 worth of sonar technology scanning the murky depths. Within 21âÑ2 hours, the machine identified a mass that would bring to an end a missing-person case that had baffled authorities for 11 months. Police divers on Wednesday found a 2007 black Lexus with what is believed to be the body of Alice Nunes of Peabody in the back seat.

Nunes, 58, was last heard from on the night of Dec. 15, 2008, when she called her family from a cell phone, telling them she was about to hit some water and asking for help.

"It's a very sad result," Peabody police Capt. Dennis Bonaiuto said yesterday. "However, it does bring some closure to her family, and I think that is important, as well."

But unanswered questions remain. Police still aren't sure why Nunes left her home on Lowell Street that night and drove to Lynn, where one witness account puts her in the Four Winds Pub on Broadway.

She wasn't a familiar face in the small bar with a clientele of regulars, said Marilyn Flynn, a bartender. Flynn wasn't there the night Nunes disappeared, but she said the bartender working at that time remembered her ordering one glass of wine, finishing it, and then taking a "couple sips" from a second glass.

She left the pub and, instead of taking a left toward Peabody, continued right toward downtown Lynn. On Carter Road, a side street less than a half-mile from the pub, authorities believe Nunes failed to negotiate a sharp left turn by the pond and went into the water.

"We're obviously very sad about it," Flynn said yesterday. "But it says a lot about her family that they never gave up (the search)."

No one answered the door yesterday at the Nunes home on Lowell Street. The family could also not be reached by phone.

Tuesday wasn't the first time Rick Horgan has made a tragic discovery. The sonar expert John Nunes paid to travel from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., found John Kennedy Jr.'s plane off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.

Horgan, 63, is often contracted by the Navy to search for downed private and commercial airplanes or helicopters. He found the wreckage of the plane carrying baseball star Roberto Clemente, Horgan said, and located parts of the space shuttle Challenger.

"Because of the circumstances, I was just feeling for him and his family," Horgan said about his search with John Nunes.

Horgan is originally from West Lynn. It was his brother, Tim, owner of the Stoneham Boat Center in Lynn, who first involved him in the search.

Tim theorized that emergency repairs on the Belden Bly Bridge could have detoured Nunes to his boatyard beside the Saugus River.

When Rick visited for the Fourth of July, the Horgan brothers searched the river.

Since Nunes' disappearance, police had searched using low-altitude helicopter flyovers, sonar screening and dive teams.

John Nunes called Rick Horgan about three weeks ago. The pair searched Sluice Pond in Lynn on Monday before moving on to Flax Pond the following day. The bodies of water are both within a 6-mile radius of Wyoma Square, the area where Nunes' call located her.

Nunes was a mother and grandmother who raised a family in Peabody. She worked for years at Analogic, and police found her Analogic work identification in the car.

As of yesterday, police were still attempting to verify the remains using dental records, said Steve O'Connell, spokesman for District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett. Foul play has been ruled out.

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Mystery lingers in Alice Nunes case
by By Matthew K. Roy , , Fri Nov 13, 2009, 09:12 AM EST
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