Lawyer For Mother Of Girls Killed By Former Baltimore Co. Officer Blasts Delay Enforcing Protective Order
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- An attorney representing the mother of two girls killed by their father in a shooting rampage last November alleged police botched the case with crucial early mistakes.
The shooter, Robert Vicosa, is a former Baltimore County police officer who killed himself, an accomplice and his daughters following a tense manhunt.
Now, the lawyer for Vicosa's estranged wife is calling on the York County, Pennsylvania police chief to step down.
"Does the family think that's an appropriate thing? Yes," Marisa Vicosa's attorney Harold Goodman told WJZ.
WJZ reached out repeatedly to York Area Regional Police for comment, but we have not heard back.
The case began when Marisa Vicosa was lured to Robert Vicosa's Pennsylvania home to celebrate a birthday with their two children, 6-year-old Aaminah and 7-year-old Gianna.
Goodman said his client was "raped, drugged, tied down on her wrists and legs and then drugged more" before she managed to escape—but without the kids.
She then went to the police, and within hours, a judge approved a protective order against Robert Vicosa.
But Marisa Vicosa alleged in a written complaint that the local chief of police put a stop to enforcing that protective order right away—waiting until the next day—because he thought their father would send the girls off to school, according to her lawyer.
"He thought somehow the two children, whose lives were at risk, would be picked up on a bus in the morning thus off the property and then the police could do their work," Goodman said.
Robert Vicosa went on the run and turned to Tia Bynum, a close friend and sergeant with Baltimore County Police, for help.
After Vicosa disappeared, police interviewed Bynum but never took her into custody.
Goodman alleges that was a mistake and happened despite his client's allegations that Bynum participated in her kidnapping and sexual assault.
"Think how easy it would it have been to conduct surveillance not just at Robert Vicosa's home but at Tia Bynum's, which was just 10 minutes away," Goodman said.
Bynum later went on the run with Robert Vicosa and was driving the getaway car when—according to police—Robert shot and killed them one-by-one before turning the gun on himself in Western Maryland. Goodman alleged, "There was a de-linkage between the police on one hand and the district attorney's office, which I believe would have…acted entirely differently had they been involved from the outset."
Marisa Vicosa withdrew her criminal complaint against the chief. Goodman said she did so because it was unlikely to result in any charges.
An investigation into her complaint by Pennsylvania's attorney general did reveal "major concerns about certain lapses and decisions leading up to this tragic situation" but no criminal charges. The findings have not been made public, but Goodman said the attorney general's office briefed him and his client.
York County District Attorney David Sunday's office said they will "fully consider" the attorney general's findings, which were delivered to Sunday in a letter.
"There are now findings of evidence of really serious police inactivity, and I mean at the higher levels of the department," Goodman said. "Officers and others on the ground who knew exactly what was happening themselves are almost in shock—and these are hardened people—at their disbelief at their inability to have done anything earlier."
York Area Regional Police did hold multiple news conferences during the ordeal, begging Vicosa to turn himself in.
Maryland State Police told WJZ this week their investigation into the Vicosa case is complete. We are still waiting on that report.
