Damien James Cuomo, 27, was murdered on December 29, 1989. Initially reported missing from Watertown, New York with some speculation he had fled to avoid a burglary warrant, later investigation established a far darker outcome. Cuomo was involved with a criminal ring that carried out burglaries and robberies and had been arrested in March 1989 with an associate, Gary Evans, after burglary tools were found in their vehicle; both were released for lack of evidence.

According to Evans’s later statements, paranoia over possible informants and Cuomo’s reported depressive episodes led Evans to handcuff Cuomo, shoot him three times in the back of the head with a .22 caliber firearm, wrap the body in a shower curtain and blanket, bind it with rope, and bury it in a pre-dug shallow grave behind an apartment building in Troy, New York. Evans confessed in 1998 and led investigators to the remains on June 24, 1998. Evans died by suicide in August 1998 while in custody during a transport.

Did anyone in Watertown or Troy know Cuomo’s movements in late 1989 and the people he associated with?