Two cold-blooded murders that haunted Rhode Island for decades are finally closed — thanks to a relentless Cold Case Unit that connected the dots long after both killers were dead.
The Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office Cold Case Unit, working with the North Providence and Narragansett Police Departments, cracked the unsolved homicides of 49-year-old Cynthia McKenna in 2007 and 24-year-old Debra Stone in 1984. In both cases, investigators say the evidence now proves what had been suspected for years — the killers were men close to the victims, and they got away with murder until the grave.
On September 2, 1984, boaters on the Narrow River in Narragansett found the body of 24-year-old Debra Stone. The state medical examiner ruled her death a homicide — asphyxiation by strangulation. Witnesses told investigators that Stone had visited Robert D. Geremia at his Johnston apartment on August 29 — the last time anyone saw her alive. An informant later admitted being in Geremia’s apartment that night and helping him move Stone’s body to the river the next day. The statement lined up with physical evidence and other witness accounts. Another witness said Geremia confessed he “had to” kill Debra because she was stealing from him. Geremia told police at the time that Debra overdosed, but the medical examiner ruled that out after finding severe neck injuries…