A Cold Case Cracks After 11 Years

Tamika Brockenberry had given up hoping that cops would find the gunman who killed her brother and a young mother 11 years ago.

“It was such a surprise when I got that phone call,” she said.

The call came Thursday from a New Haven cop. They said they’d solved the case.

Tamika (pictured above with her niece Manteiya) and her family showed up to a press conference Friday on the third floor of police headquarters, where cops announced the good news to the public: New Haven police, working with the FBI, arrested a man for allegedly shooting two people to death in 2000. It’s the first test of an ambitious new joint effort to re-investigate 101 unsolved murders dating back to 1979.

“A lot of years,” Tamika muttered, standing behind her niece. She shook her head slowly. Then her face crumpled and she began to cry.

Her brother, Lamont Brockenberry and a young mom named Lakeia Vaughn were gunned down on June 1, 2000. Police say a man known as “Mousey” shot both of them dead at 500-502 Winthrop Ave. Despite an effort by then-Detective Stacy Spell to revisit the investigation in 2002, the homicides became one of New Haven’s cold cases.

Tamika said over the last 11 years, she lost hope the murder would be solved.

“I been gave up,” she said. “I didn’t think they cared.”

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