Clean Up Costs Would Be Covered By Offender's Fees

Crime Scene Cleanup Bill Stalled On Hill

BOSTON -- A proposed bill aimed at helping the families of homicide victims move forward after the crime is stalled on Beacon Hill.

The bill, filed by Attorney General Martha Coakley, uses money from offenders' fees to pay to clean up crime scenes so the burden doesn’t fall on the grieving families.

Six years ago, Joanne Presti, 34, was raped and stabbed repeatedly in her apartment. Alyssa, her 12-year-old daughter, had her throat slashed. The woman's parents found their bodies three days later.

Days after the pair were buried, relatives returned to the apartment to collect their belongings and found a gruesome reminder of their loss.

Annette Presti told the Boston Herald that the apartment was covered in fingerprinting dust, the kitchen sink had been ripped out and holes were found in the walls -- but that wasn't the worst part.

"One of my sons called to say, ‘Mom, the couch is still here with Joanne’s blood all over it. Nobody took it away,’" she told the paper. "It was like going through it all over again.”

The addendum to the Victim Compensation Fund would help cover the cost of cleaning up the properties after the investigators have left.

“We don’t think about what families like the Prestis are left to deal with after the police leave. I was the (Middlesex) DA at the time. I was there that night and saw what the Prestis saw,” Coakley told the Herald. “We’re not asking for much here, just the chance to ease a family’s burden.”

Michael Bizanowicz, a Level 3 sex offender, was eventually convicted in the Prestis' deaths.