Boston trucker apparently shot dead on Rt. 103 Victim pled guilty in 2017 to federal drug charges in Mass.

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2019 Telegraph Publishing LLC

A Boston man was found dead along Route 103 in Rockingham Friday, apparently of a gunshot wound, in the truck he was driving for a Boston fruit wholesaler according to Vermont State Police.

Late Friday afternoon, state police were sent to perform a welfare check on the truck owned by Katsiroubas Brothers, which was parked on the southbound side of the highway between Lower Bartonsville and Williams roads. Police found bullet holes in the windshield of the truck and Roberto Fonseca-Rivera, 44, of Boston, Mass., dead.

According to sources, the driver is the same Roberto Fonseca-Rivera who pleaded guilty in the fall of 2017 to a federal cocaine charge in Massachusetts. He was later sentenced to one year and a day in prison. Others convicted in the same case received sentences ranging from 30 months to 17 1/2 years.

Police brought in a mobile command post and crime scene truck and worked on the investigation through the night. On Saturday morning, troopers were still routing traffic around the scene.

Following police radio traffic on Friday night, The Telegraph learned that police requested information from the truck’s GPS from the company and that a vice president and human resources director came from the Massachusetts company to the State Police barracks in Westminster. In a Saturday afternoon press release, State Police said that the company is cooperating in the investigation.

Police have learned that the victim was in Vermont in the company truck making deliveries. His last known location was leaving Rutland at about 12:15 p.m. Friday, Nov. 1 and heading southbound on Route 103. Investigators believe the shooting occurred between 1 and 1:30 p.m. Friday, on Route 103 near the location where the victim’s body was discovered in his vehicle.

An autopsy is planned for Sunday, Nov. 3, at the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington to determine the cause and manner of Fonseca-Rivera’s death. Police say that preliminary investigation indicates this was an isolated incident.

Vermont State Police are asking anyone who saw the Katsiroubas Produce truck on Route 103 on Friday afternoon — including anyone who may have observed anything suspicious with the truck or with any other vehicles operating near the truck —  to call them at Westminster Barracks, 802-722-4600.