Yoseliani Ann Marte Ocasio was eighteen years old. On July 18, her body was found inside a seven-bedroom rental property in Mattapan, Boston — a property owned by Conan Harris, the husband of "Squad" member and U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
On Thursday, July 30, the cause of death was formally ruled a homicide. Single gunshot wound to the head.
The Boston Police Department's Homicide Unit, operating out of E-18 station, has been investigating since the discovery. As of the ruling, no arrests have been made and no charges have been filed.
The property itself is a two-story house built in 1910, assessed at approximately $919,000 and listed at $1.15 million. It belongs to Harris, who purchased it as a rental. The connection to Pressley is straightforward: she's his wife. The property is his. The body was found inside it.
Pressley's office moved quickly to put distance between the congresswoman and the crime. A spokesperson said there is "absolutely nothing that indicates any connection to the owners of the property." Pressley herself said she was "devastated by the loss" and extended her "deepest condolences to the impacted family."
Nobody is suggesting Pressley or Harris had any involvement in the death itself. But the statement from her office — specifically the phrase "absolutely nothing that indicates any connection" — is doing the kind of preemptive work you usually see from a communications team that knows the headline is going to be brutal regardless.
The victim's mother, Elenie Ocasio, was not interested in carefully worded statements. "This coward killed my baby," she said. "He put a gun to her head, took my baby in that house and left her to die." She described her daughter as "deeply loved by her family, friends, and everyone whose life she touched."
That quote tells you the family believes they know what happened, even if law enforcement hasn't caught up yet. A mother describing the killer's actions in that level of detail — "took my baby in that house" — suggests a specific person and a specific sequence of events. Whether Boston PD is close to an arrest or not, the family isn't waiting on the ruling to know what happened to their daughter.
Pressley is one of the original "Squad" members — the group that built its brand on criminal justice reform, police accountability, and the idea that communities of color are over-policed and under-served. Mattapan is one of those communities. And right now, in one of her husband's properties in that community, a teenager was murdered and nobody has been held accountable.