Lena Bruce had a bright future ahead of her. She’d just graduated from a top university and landed a great job, and she was settling into a new apartment in the heart of Boston’s South End neighborhood, already living the life she’d worked for since she was a child. But one night in the summer of 1992, an assailant altered the course of Lena’s dreams and stole that bright future from her.
That assailant thought he’d gotten away with it…But there’s no hiding from DNA evidence. It took more than two decades, but justice finally landed, and now there’s one less case left unsolved in New England.
July 12, 1992
It was the evening of July 10th, 1992 and 21-year old Lena Bruce was just seeing her roommate Barbara off for the weekend from the steps of their stately brownstone at 694 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston’s South End neighborhood. They’d moved into the first floor apartment in the bow-front building just a few weeks earlier and Lena absolutely loved that apartment; it was her first place after graduating from Tufts University and beginning her career as an electrical engineer. Lena had worked her whole life to reach that goal, and the apartment was where her future was supposed to take shape.
Barbara was headed to Philadelphia that weekend and Lena was supposed to go with her but she changed her mind at the last minute. Philly was her home town, and she was planning to attend a Greek festival of Black fraternities and sororities with Barbara, but decided to stay back in Boston instead. According to reporting by L. Kim Tan for the Boston Herald, Lena had just received one of her first paychecks so she wanted to do a little furniture shopping. They didn’t speak again after Barbara left. She’d only be gone a few days and they’d see each other again on Sunday…