“Unrelenting” Investigation Leads to DNA Match in Woman’s Murder, Prosecutor Says

Rosanna Camilo, who came to Boston to seek medical care for her young child, was sexually assaulted and strangled to death by a neighbor at her Mattapan apartment building, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said today.

ELDRICK D. BROOM (D.O.B. 4/7/84) of Roxbury was arraigned today on charges of murder and aggravated rape for Camilo’s Nov. 21 homicide. Prosecutors recommended that he be held without bail on the murder charge and that his open bail on an unrelated assault and battery charge be revoked; Judge Robert Baylor granted the former request but delayed action on the latter until Jan. 31.

Assistant District Attorney Gretchen Lundgren told the court that the 34-year-old Camilo – “a wife and devoted mother of three” from the Dominican Republic – was killed in the bedroom of her Fairlawn Avenue apartment on the morning or early afternoon of Nov. 21. At the time of her death, Lundgren said, Camilo’s 17-month-old son was home in an adjacent room. Camilo’s remains were found that afternoon by her older daughter.

Broom had lived across the hall from Camilo and her family until the end of October, Lundgren told the court, when he moved to a different apartment within the same housing complex. During the course of the investigation, Boston Police homicide detectives interviewed multiple witnesses and obtained a voluntary buccal swab from Broom.

A DNA profile developed from that swab matched DNA from biological evidence at the scene, Lundgren said. Based on that match by the Boston Police Crime Laboratory, detectives arrested Broom late last night.

“This was outstanding work by detectives, prosecutors, and criminalists, all working together,” Conley said. “I hope Ms. Camilo’s loved ones, both here and abroad, can take some satisfaction in knowing that investigators worked so hard behind the scenes to reach this point. That work will continue tomorrow, next week, and until the truth is finally spoken in a Suffolk County courtroom.”

In addition to the open assault and battery case, which brought Boston Police to 50 Fairlawn St. on Aug. 8, Broom also has a pending case in Brookline District Court and convictions in Alabama that led to his 2009 arrest as a fugitive from justice, Lundgren said.

Katherine Moran is the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate. Broom is represented by attorney Norman Zalkind.