Man given life sentence for 1988 South Boston murder

Carl Richard Vega was found guilty of murder last month, 36 years to the day that Judy Chamberlain was found dead.

Carl Richard Vega, 61, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Tuesday for the 1988 murder of Judy Chamberlain, 21, in South Boston.

Vega, also known as Ricardo Mazzarino, was found guilty of first-degree murder last month, 36 years to the day that Chamberlain was recovered strangled in the basement of the Fargo Building at 451 D Street, according to a statement from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.

Chamberlain’s body was found when a maintenance worker uncovered her body in a well next to a large sump pump, the statement said.

Biological evidence indicated that Vega sexually assaulted Chamberlain, according to the office. In 2011, Vega was identified as a suspect, but Suffolk prosecutors did not believe they had enough evidence at the time to prove Vega’s guilt without a reasonable doubt. The case remained unsolved.

A re-examination of Chamberlain’s homicide was successful, prosecutors said, and a grand jury returned an indictment in 2021 charging Vega with her murder.

This week, John Olson and Jill Burr, Chamberlain’s siblings, along with Tina Cattaneo, Chamberlain’s friend, gave victim impact statements in front of Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Josh Wall before sentencing.

“Anyone in the courtroom today could feel the anguish and desolation expressed by Judy’s loved ones after so many years of questions without answers,” Suffolk District Attorney Keven Hayden said in the statement. “Today they finally had the opportunity to see someone held accountable for the loss of the person they so clearly love and so clearly miss.”