SUMMERFIELD, FL (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) The investigation into the murder of Molly Bish has brought Massachusetts State Police Detectives to Florida.
Investigators searched the trailer where potential suspect Rodney Stanger lived, looking to see if there is anything that could link Stanger to the murder of Molly Bish.
PHOTO GALLERY: Mass. investigators search home, safe deposit box of possible Bish suspect
A state trooper investigating the 1993 murder of Holly Piirainen in Sturbridge also joined detectives on their trip.
A Florida detective tells FOX 25 she helped investigators obtain a search warrant for a safe deposit box that belongs to Stanger.
"I don't know what changed for them. I am not privy to their information, but they had a lead or something happened in Massachusetts, they were able to come here. They asked me to prepare a search warrant for a safe deposit box in Dunnellon, and a search warrant for this house," says Detective Rhonda Stroup, a law enforcement official from Marion County, FL.
Rodney Stanger, a former Southbridge resident, abruptly moved to the trailer in Summerfield, FL that is now the center of a Massachusetts investigation in the weeks after Molly Bish was abducted from Warren's Comins Pond. Stanger strongly resembles the sketch of a man in the Bish case.
Stanger's neighbor in Florida, Jim Kaufman, remembers having to call the cops on him.
"I called them because I heard a shot gun go off, ‘boom, boom, boom.' High-powered eight times. I said there's trouble you better get here," says Kaufman.
Stanger is currently serving a 25-year sentence for murdering his girlfriend, Chrystal Morrison, in their trailer.
In June, Morrison's sister retrieved items from the trailer, including Stanger's wallet and keys to a secret safe deposit box.
Bank officials where the deposit box is held confirm to FOX 25 that on Monday, Mass. State Police detectives, acting on a search warrant, came to the bank and opened Stanger's safe deposit box. No word what was in that box.
Investigators also plan to re-interview Stanger while they are in Florida.
