JULY 27, 2000

D.A. BROWN: ARREST IN 1992 MURDER OF ROCKAWAY WOMAN

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today the arrest of a Rockaway woman in connection with the 1992 murder of Elizabeth Timmons, the elderly widow of a police officer.

District Attorney Brown identified the defendant as Deidre Brown, 30, of 97-16 124th Street, Jamaica. She is charged with Murder 2°, Robbery 1°, Burglary 1°, Manslaughter 2°, Conspiracy and Criminal Mischief for her part in the robbery and murder of Mrs. Timmons. She faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

According to the District Attorney, Mrs. Timmons, who was 85 years old at the time of her death, was found murdered in her apartment in the Wavecrest Gardens complex on Seagirt Boulevard on August 1, 1992. She had been planning to attend the funerals of two friends from the neighborhood, Marion Polichak and James Dwyer, who had been murdered only days earlier. Their murderers, Joseph Hladky and Anthony Jackson, were arrested in 1992 are currently serving sentences of life in prison.

The District Attorney said, "this case was an unfortunate reflection of the state of criminal activity in Queens County in -- the early 1990s: a woman planning to attend the funeral of two other murder victims murdered - two separate cases - three murders in four days in one New York neighborhood."

According to the charges, the defendant conspired with another individual to rob Mrs. Timmons and admitted her conspirator into the locked apartment building where both she and the deceased lived. It is believed that that individual, who is not yet in custody, followed Mrs. Timmons up to her apartment door after she returned from a walk. She was wearing the coat which she usually wore walking on the boardwalk when her daughter found her dead in her ransacked apartment.

Assistant District Attorney Gabriel Tapalaga of District Attorney Brown’s Homicide Investigations Bureau, under the supervision of Bureau Chief Peter Reese and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Gregory L. Lasak, is in charge of the case.