A Boston man serving a life sentence for murdering his girlfriend in Weymouth in 2017 was charged today with murdering another woman in 1999 in her apartment at 467 Columbia Rd. in Dorchester, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office reports.
Cornell Bell, 54, is charged with stabbing Caryn Bonner, 34, to death in her kitchen. Bonner’s sister found her body on May 19, 1999 after she went there because she had not heard from her for several days, the DA’s office reports.
A break in the case only came in 2022, after Bell was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of Michele Clark of Weymouth, the DA’s office reports:
His DNA profile was subsequently uploaded into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS. Suffolk County investigators linked Bell’s DNA to that found on a cigarette butt in Caryn Bonner’s apartment. Investigators also re-discovered photographs of latent fingerprints in blood from inside the apartment and were able to individualize one of the prints to Bell.
Bell was ordered held without bail at a hearing in Suffolk Superior Court yesterday, the DA’s office says, adding he is scheduled to return to court on Feb. 19.
Last month, DNA evidence led investigators to an arrest in a 1997 murder in Codman Square.
