Attorney General Dave Yost said his office was called in 2021 to help Cleveland solve Aliza Sherman's cold case. BCI's cold case unit has extra tools, technology, and the bandwidth to help bring a fresh set of eyes to the case and new insights.
"Most frequently, the game changer is something new in the way of technology or something that a local police department simply doesn't have available to it because of scale or something that's recently developed," Yost told anchor Tracy Carloss on Monday.
Twelve years after Sherman, a 53-year-old Cleveland Clinic nurse, was brutally stabbed to death in broad daylight, the attorney representing her in a divorce case, Gregory Moore, has been indicted for her death.
When it came to this case, Yost said new technology and fresh eyes helped unlock this mystery.
"The analytics on the digital fingerprints, so to speak, from the electronic devices and a number of transmissions, gave us the keys," Yost said.
Yost said that anytime a person uses their cell phone, it leaves a fingerprint. Anytime a cell phone connects to the nearest WiFi, there is a record can help police with their investigations.
According to Yost, more in-depth information will be released at trial.
The arrest
According to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office, 51-year-old Moore is charged with one count of aggravated murder, one count of conspiracy, six counts of murder, and two counts of kidnapping.
RELATED: Attorney for Aliza Sherman indicted on murder charges for her death
Sherman, a mother of four, was killed in the middle of the day in Downtown Cleveland on March 24, 2013, near Moore's office.
According to the secret indictment, which was made public after Moore's arrest, he allegedly lured Sherman to where he worked, saying that he needed to meet with her but didn't intend to meet with her at all.
The indictment states this was part of a plan that was hatched months earlier to kidnap her to avoid having her try her divorce case in court.
As Sherman waited for someone to unlock the doors at Moore's office building, "an individual who was either Moore or an unknown co-conspirator" approached Sherman on East 12th Street, circled behind her, chased her, and then stabbed her more than 10 times, the indictment said.
Moore also allegedly disconnected his phone from the cell network for three hours around the time of Sherman's death in an attempt to avoid creating cell tower location evidence. He later turned his phone back on and made several calls to Sherman's phone to cover his tracks, according to the indictment. He then got a new phone a few days after her death.
“The Sherman family has waited over a decade for answers regarding their mother’s homicide," said Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley. "Through the tenacious work of multiple law enforcement agencies, evidence was accumulated that paints the unmistakable picture that Gregory Moore orchestrated and participated in the brutal murder of Aliza Sherman."
Said Yost: "I want to credit Prosecutor O'Malley and his team for being willing to step up and take this case. This is not a traditional open-and-shut kind of DNA case."
