Zoneboy
03-25-2009, 06:59 AM
Link (http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_11983894)
At first, the Christmas cards from their son's old boss arrived year after year at the Mauro home, always remembering the promising young engineer, gunned down in broad daylight at Applied Materials.
Then, eventually, the cards stopped. So, too, did the calls from police.
What hasn't stopped are the restless nights, lying awake, tormented with the same piercing questions about a murder that happened 15 years ago today. Who would have wanted Matthew D. Flores dead? Why would anyone want to kill the handsome, charismatic husband and father — a decorated Army veteran who led a seemingly ordinary life?
"It's been 15 years, it is still an unsolved homicide and nothing has ever come about," said Mike Mauro, Flores' stepfather. "We're still hoping someday, someone will call us and say, 'Here's what happened and here's the reason.' "
But the mystery surrounding the case still haunts them as they wait in frustration for Santa Clara police to find their son's shooter, a phantom-like killer who slipped away without a trace from the parking lot of Building 12 on March 24, 1994.
What made the Flores' case all the more baffling was that even though it happened just minutes after 8 a.m. as he arrived to work on his ninth day on the job, it appears that no one saw the shooting. Not the woman who heard the shot and turned to see his kneeling body, slumped next to the driver's door of his sedan. Nor the other drivers who entered the
parking lot just before he was shot once in the back of the head at point-blank range. None of the security cameras captured the shooting, and there was no shell casing from a weapon or sign of a struggle. None of his belongings were taken.
But there was one potentially explosive piece of evidence caught on a grainy security videotape — a black and white Ford Explorer, seen circling the parking lot before the shooting, then leaving only seconds after Flores was shot. The driver has never been found.
"The most puzzling thing about this case is that it was so busy that morning, yet we didn't have as many witnesses as you would think there would be,'' said Capt. Stewart Cusimano, who's been at the department for 29 years. "That's what was really lacking here."
Flores, 26, had just left the Army where he had served as a lieutenant during Operation Desert Storm. He had moved his wife and 8-month-old daughter, Danielle, to Santa Clara for a job at Applied Materials where he was to train for a few months before transferring to the company's Dallas office.
"He had paid his dues and put himself through college,'' said his mother, Ellen Mauro, from her home in Rhode Island, where Flores grew up. "This was his big chance and he never got to enjoy it."
In the 15 years since Flores' death, Mauro hounded the FBI, congressional leaders and former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno for help in her son's case. She even sought out psychics. Nothing panned out.
"I spent more than five years going everywhere and anywhere to anyone who I thought could help,'' she said, "and all I would get were doors slammed in my face or letters saying, 'We can't help you.' ''
His widow, Denise, a nurse who lives in Massachusetts, never remarried and both she and Danielle always wonder why Flores' life was taken so brutally. "We lived very ordinary lives,'' she said. "There have been so many days and nights when I've thought of every possible scenario and nothing makes sense."
Danielle knows her father only through videos and photographs, including one near the Golden Gate Bridge taken days before his death, where's he's holding her in his arms.
Flores' case has appeared on "Unsolved Mysteries," airing periodically over the years and occasionally generating new leads.
"We've probably spent more time on this case than any other case that I can recall," Cusimano said. More recently, Santa Clara police had consultants look at the case, submitted new evidence to the lab and reviewed the surveillance tape. Detectives also took a new look at his military connections, exploring his relationships and assignments.
Flores had no known enemies, so there's a question whether it could have been a case of mistaken identity.
"There are no facts that can substantiate a theory," Cusimano said.
The family, however, remains frustrated with police. Cusimano said he understands. "I don't blame them. I'm frustrated. This is one of those cases that I have always taken a personal interest in."
At Applied Materials, the executives who knew Flores are gone. His old boss, Gary Robertson, who found him in the parking lot that day, no longer wants to talk about the case. And, since Flores had been at the tech company just days, not many knew him.
Still, a reminder of him lingers at the company's sprawling campus. There, near the dull forbidding concrete Building 12 on Oakmead Village Drive, is a scarcely noticeable barren tree planted in Flores' honor. Next to it lies a tombstone-like granite monument ensconced in a cluster of rocks with a plaque. It says simply: Matthew D. Flores, 1967-1994.
At first, the Christmas cards from their son's old boss arrived year after year at the Mauro home, always remembering the promising young engineer, gunned down in broad daylight at Applied Materials.
Then, eventually, the cards stopped. So, too, did the calls from police.
What hasn't stopped are the restless nights, lying awake, tormented with the same piercing questions about a murder that happened 15 years ago today. Who would have wanted Matthew D. Flores dead? Why would anyone want to kill the handsome, charismatic husband and father — a decorated Army veteran who led a seemingly ordinary life?
"It's been 15 years, it is still an unsolved homicide and nothing has ever come about," said Mike Mauro, Flores' stepfather. "We're still hoping someday, someone will call us and say, 'Here's what happened and here's the reason.' "
But the mystery surrounding the case still haunts them as they wait in frustration for Santa Clara police to find their son's shooter, a phantom-like killer who slipped away without a trace from the parking lot of Building 12 on March 24, 1994.
What made the Flores' case all the more baffling was that even though it happened just minutes after 8 a.m. as he arrived to work on his ninth day on the job, it appears that no one saw the shooting. Not the woman who heard the shot and turned to see his kneeling body, slumped next to the driver's door of his sedan. Nor the other drivers who entered the
parking lot just before he was shot once in the back of the head at point-blank range. None of the security cameras captured the shooting, and there was no shell casing from a weapon or sign of a struggle. None of his belongings were taken.
But there was one potentially explosive piece of evidence caught on a grainy security videotape — a black and white Ford Explorer, seen circling the parking lot before the shooting, then leaving only seconds after Flores was shot. The driver has never been found.
"The most puzzling thing about this case is that it was so busy that morning, yet we didn't have as many witnesses as you would think there would be,'' said Capt. Stewart Cusimano, who's been at the department for 29 years. "That's what was really lacking here."
Flores, 26, had just left the Army where he had served as a lieutenant during Operation Desert Storm. He had moved his wife and 8-month-old daughter, Danielle, to Santa Clara for a job at Applied Materials where he was to train for a few months before transferring to the company's Dallas office.
"He had paid his dues and put himself through college,'' said his mother, Ellen Mauro, from her home in Rhode Island, where Flores grew up. "This was his big chance and he never got to enjoy it."
In the 15 years since Flores' death, Mauro hounded the FBI, congressional leaders and former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno for help in her son's case. She even sought out psychics. Nothing panned out.
"I spent more than five years going everywhere and anywhere to anyone who I thought could help,'' she said, "and all I would get were doors slammed in my face or letters saying, 'We can't help you.' ''
His widow, Denise, a nurse who lives in Massachusetts, never remarried and both she and Danielle always wonder why Flores' life was taken so brutally. "We lived very ordinary lives,'' she said. "There have been so many days and nights when I've thought of every possible scenario and nothing makes sense."
Danielle knows her father only through videos and photographs, including one near the Golden Gate Bridge taken days before his death, where's he's holding her in his arms.
Flores' case has appeared on "Unsolved Mysteries," airing periodically over the years and occasionally generating new leads.
"We've probably spent more time on this case than any other case that I can recall," Cusimano said. More recently, Santa Clara police had consultants look at the case, submitted new evidence to the lab and reviewed the surveillance tape. Detectives also took a new look at his military connections, exploring his relationships and assignments.
Flores had no known enemies, so there's a question whether it could have been a case of mistaken identity.
"There are no facts that can substantiate a theory," Cusimano said.
The family, however, remains frustrated with police. Cusimano said he understands. "I don't blame them. I'm frustrated. This is one of those cases that I have always taken a personal interest in."
At Applied Materials, the executives who knew Flores are gone. His old boss, Gary Robertson, who found him in the parking lot that day, no longer wants to talk about the case. And, since Flores had been at the tech company just days, not many knew him.
Still, a reminder of him lingers at the company's sprawling campus. There, near the dull forbidding concrete Building 12 on Oakmead Village Drive, is a scarcely noticeable barren tree planted in Flores' honor. Next to it lies a tombstone-like granite monument ensconced in a cluster of rocks with a plaque. It says simply: Matthew D. Flores, 1967-1994.