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New England’s Unsolved: The murder of Tracey Monteiro

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Eleven years after her brother was ambushed and murdered in New Bedford, Tracey Monteiro’s sister is not giving up her push for justice.

Marissa Monteiro remembers her big brother as a kind, caring man, who did not deserve his fate.

At the time of his murder, Marissa said her brother seemed to be settling down in life.

“He was a great guy. He loved to cook. He had no children. His nieces and nephews were his life,” Marissa Monteiro told me.

Over Thanksgiving weekend 2011, Tracey Monteiro was shot to death in the driveway of his apartment building at 120 Locust Street in New Bedford. Tracey had just gotten dropped off at his home, after a long night out.

“Did you ever get a sense that where he was living wasn’t safe for him?” I asked Marissa.

“No, never,” she said. “He was just living life, going to work, coming home, spending time with his girlfriend.”

“Did you get a sense that he was in any trouble in new Bedford?”

“No, he was never in trouble. He was a pretty loved person, actually,” Monteiro said.

Eleven years after her brother’s murder, Marissa still can’t make any sense of it all.

She last spoke to her brother on Thanksgiving night. She said it was a routine call about the holidays. Marissa said nothing seemed out of place.

“We talked about how the day was, how Thanksgiving was, we talked about our plans for Christmas,” Monteiro remembered.

Marissa Monteiro told me that Tracey spent his last hours, with his girlfriend, at a neighbor’s baby shower. After his girlfriend returned to the couple’s New Bedford apartment, Tracey stayed out. He first went to a New Bedford night club and then to a private after-party. He stayed until early Sunday morning, when relatives of his upstairs neighbors gave Tracey a ride home.

At about 5:30 a.m. on November 27, 2011, Tracey’s girlfriend woke up to the sound gunfire. She ran outside to find Tracey’s bullet ridden body at the end of the driveway.

At about 8:00 a.m., Marissa raced to her brother’s apartment from her home in Brockton.

She knew her brother was gone, but she was not prepared for what she saw in New Bedford.

“When I got there, I didn’t expect my brother’s body to still be there. I think that was sort of shocker,” Marissa said. “There was caution tape everywhere. We walked to his house from a couple blocks away. There were markers everywhere from bullets just being sprayed all over the neighborhood.”

In the years since Tracey’s murder, Marissa Monteiro has struggled with what happened to her brother.

Tracey’s case is featured on the Bristol County DA’s Unsolved Cases webpage, but there is still no arrest.

If you have any information about what happened to Tracey Monteiro, contact the Massachusetts State Police Unresolved Case Unit at (855) MA-SOLVE.

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