Police seek body from 1997 murder
Peabody search comes up empty; 6 already convicted
PEABODY -- Using backhoes, shovels, and police dogs, law enforcement crews excavated a football field-sized wooded grove yesterday in search of the body of Aislin Silva, a 19-year-old woman killed and dismembered in an infamous mob hit nine years ago.
After eight hours of digging and searching, they came up empty but planned to resume the search today.
The US attorney's office in Boston has pursued the case for nearly a decade, winning convictions against all six members of the Mafia-affiliated crime gang involved in killing Silva. Her body was never found, though her blood and hair turned up in a trash bin behind a Danvers car wash in 1997.
US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan explained the rationale for continuing to search for her body. ``Certainly it's most important for her family to recover her remains," he said yesterday. ``. . . We're going to search until we exhaust this area."
Sitting on lawn chairs and drinking coffee, Silva's mother, father, and sister watched as the crews dug yesterday. They declined to comment.
Sullivan said that police teams had dug near the same site about two months ago and that investigators had a solid lead that Silva's body was buried in the grove.
``Information has been developed over the course of the investigation, over the last couple of years and over the last, probably, year, where the evidence suggests she was likely buried here," Sullivan said. He declined to give any more information about the tip.
The area that investigators were digging up yesterday was about 60 yards long and 25 yards wide, said Sullivan, who added that the crews did not plan to dig more than 6 feet deep.
``There's a specific area that we believe is a likely burial site," he said.
Just before her death, Silva had been mixed up with the wrong crowd, federal law enforcement officials have said, outlining their case in several trials.
She was present when police raided her Medford apartment and found high-powered guns that her boyfriend, Stephen DiCenso, had stashed there.
DiCenso told his gang associates that she would probably inform police of their criminal activities.
In November 1996, the gang's boss, Paul A. ``Big Paul" Decologero, ordered her killed. His associates carried it out.
DiCenso eventually cooperated with authorities, after pleading guilty to racketeering charges.
In March, Decologero was convicted of being the leader of a racketeering enterprise that primarily robbed rival drug dealers of weapons and drugs.
Two of Decologero's nephews, John P. Decologero Jr. and Paul J. Decologero, and another member of the gang, Joseph Pavone, were convicted on racketeering, witness tampering, drug trafficking, and robbery charges.
In May 2005, another gang member, Derek Capozzi, was convicted of conspiracy to commit witness tampering, homicide, and being an accessory after the fact to Silva's murder.
He is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence. Prosecution witnesses testified that Capozzi helped cut up and dispose of Silva's body.
The man who allegedly snapped Silva's neck, Kevin Meuse, committed suicide in prison in 1997.
Yesterday, the grim task unfolded next to ball fields at William A. Welch Sr. Elementary School, with children playing and tossing softballs as federal and state police officers dug nearby.
Susan Aquino, 52, who also lives nearby, watched the excavation with chills.
``It's kind of creepy. The first thing I thought is I've been walking around on a dead body," she said. ``It's real hard to shelter kids from this stuff."
``It's just weird," said Jill Wodarski, who lives down the street from the school.
``You don't hear about that kind of thing here. You hear it on TV, but you don't think it'll happen right by your house."
Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com. Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com. 