Episode 28: The Suspicious Death of Lori Malloy
On March 7th, 1993, the East Providence Police Department was alerted to perform a welfare check on 30-year-old Lori Lee Malloy, nicknamed “Sled Dog”. An officer was brought to the Rhode Island apartment by Lori’s boyfriend, Henry Costa.
The front door to Lori’s apartment was open and the responding officer could hear the faucet in the bathroom running at full blast. The scene that was found was disturbing - Lori was deceased, lying naked on the floor in her bathroom with bruises on her legs and clumps of hair around her body, as well as clumps of hair all over the apartment and wrapped in her toes and fingers on her right hand.
To add to the bizarre scene, there were slices of bread around her body, two drinking glasses left on the kitchen table, and the refrigerator was full of food but had been unplugged. Officers immediately classify the case as a homicide, and Henry Costa was considered a suspect but was eventually released following investigation.
Henry had grown concerned when he had not heard from Lori for several days, and when he checked in with Lori’s sister Allyson, who was watching Lori’s 18 month old baby Lauren, he found that he was not the only one who had not heard from Lori. He reported that they were not speaking, as they had gotten into a fight regarding Lori’s “cocaine use”. He then went to the police department to request a welfare check when he continued to get no response from Lori.
An autopsy was performed, and despite all findings being deemed as “unremarkable”, including a negative toxicology report, Dr. F John Krolikowski determined the cause of death as “natural” and as a result of a heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Krolikowski had lost his license in the state of Massachusetts and would go on to lose it in Rhode Island just several months after closing Lori’s case, as he was determined to have misdiagnosed hundreds of cases.
Unsolved RI, started by Lori’s daughter Lauren, is working to get this case reopened. You can sign the petition to get the attorney general’s office to officially reopen and reinvestigate this case at https://www.change.org/p/ri-attorney-general-justice-for-sled-dog.
Anyone with any information on this case is asked to please call the East Providence Police Department at 401-435-7600, or send information through email at unsolvedri.com.
Image sources:
unsolvedri.com - “Lori Lee Malloy”