Thursday, 4:30 PM
Convicted sex offender found guilty of murder of mother, daughter in Woburn
By Globe Staff
A jury today found a convicted child molester guilty of the murder and aggravated rape of a mother and the stabbing death of her 12-year-old daughter in their Woburn home in 2004 in a high-profile case that prompted a change in the state’s sex offender laws.
Michael Bizanowicz, 41, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of aggravated rape by a Middlesex Superior Court jury in Cambridge after deliberating for less than two days. The bodies of Joanne C. Presti, 34, and her daughter, Alyssa Presti, were found in their Totman Drive home on January 7, 2004.
Prosecutors alleged during the trial that Bizanowicz went after Alyssa Presti when she interrupted the brutal attack against her mother. The fifth-grader was found barefoot and bleeding to death in her bedroom.
Bizanowicz of Lowell pleaded not guilty to killings and said that he and Joanne C. Presti had consensual sex. Defense attorney Stanley Norkunas dismissed other evidence presented at trial as circumstantial.
Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Lynch, however, argued that Bizanowicz was linked to the crime by DNA evidence taken from both bodies and other physical evidence. Police arrested Bizanowicz on Jan. 16, 2004 when investigators said they matched his DNA to semen taken from the body of Joanne Presti. After a search of his apartment and truck, police said they found a suicide note and rope that matched fibers found on Presti's wrists.
Lawmakers changed the state's sex offender laws after Bizanowicz’s arrest. He was convicted of raping a child in 1989 and registered as a Level 3 sex offender in Lowell. Bizanowicz, however, was not required to register in Woburn, where he often stayed with the mother of his daughter, who was a close friend of Joanne C. Presti.
The new law requires registered sex offenders to give a secondary address -- defined as a place the offender lives for 14 days a year. Annette and Peter Presti, Joanne's parents, lobbied for strengthening the law after the slayings.
Bizanowicz is scheduled to be sentenced at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
