DNA leads to charges in 1992 slaying of Taunton city planner

By Andrew Ryan, Globe Correspondent

A Bristol County grand jury has indicted a convicted murderer in the 1992 killing of Gerald Rose, the Taunton city planner whose slaying stymied investigators for 14 years until a recent DNA match.

Rose, 39, was found strangled in his ransacked School Street apartment by his mother on Feb. 18, 1992.

Bristol County District Attorney Paul F. Walsh Jr. announced today that Timothy Imbriglio, 35, has been charged with the crime.

“We were resolved to bring Rose’s killing to justice and today our determination and persistence have paid off,” Walsh said in a written statement. The grand jury issued the indictment on Thursday.

Imbriglio had been previously convicted in the 1996 killing of Henry Cohen, an 82-year-old New Bedford man found strangled in a wooded gully after he had been missing for 11 days. Police arrested Imbriglio shortly after the crime, and he has been in Massachusetts State Prison since his conviction.

Forensic evidence gathered during the Cohen investigation identified Imbriglio as a possible suspect in Rose’s death, Walsh said. In 1992, detectives had been unable to pinpoint a suspect in the city planner’s death despite fingerprint comparisons and other investigative work.

Once authorities identified Imbriglio as a suspect, they said they were able to turn to DNA, which secured the indictment.

Rose had been Taunton’s city planner for three years at the time of this death, taking the position in 1989. His 1992 killing sent shock waves through City Hall and the quiet Taunton neighborhood where his family had lived for several generations.