Joey Bochicchio-Hauser

A suburban Boca Raton woman and her 8-year-old daughter were found dead in their idling car early Thursday, apparently killed during a robbery at the Town Center mall.

Police found Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and Joey Bochicchio-Hauser inside a black 2007 Chrysler Aspen SUV, parked in a merchandise pick-up area on the south side of Sears, after mall security workers saw the occupied car with its engine running in an otherwise empty lot shortly after midnight.

Money had been taken, according to police, who spoke of a possible link to a robbery at the mall in August.

Investigators said they were looking for witnesses and surveillance video from the mall. Police did not say how much money was taken and have not said how the mother and daughter were killed.

At 9 a.m. Thursday, shoppers began to fill the mall, which was crowded throughout the day. Several people strolling out of Sears had no idea two bodies had been found nearby just hours earlier.

But on Buttonwood Lake Drive in the Hidden Lake community, where the mother and daughter had lived in a four-bedroom home for the past seven years, holiday festivities stopped Thursday night.

On most nights, the family's well-tended lawn displayed brightly lit white reindeer, penguins and a plastic Santa Claus.

On Thursday night, the house was dark. A welcome mat greeted visitors below the front door, where red plastic flowers and a shiny gold ribbon were tied to the knob.

Neighbor Mini deQuesada, an emergency room nurse at West Boca Medical Center, said that when she left for her night shift at the hospital, the holiday decorations in Bochicchio's front yard had been dark for two nights.

Not many in the neighborhood knew the family well. A neighbor said Nancy Bochicchio was always with her daughter. Wearing her Catholic school uniform, Joey Bochicchio often played in the front yard.

Her toys were piled high in the garage, so her mother parked the SUV in the driveway. They walked their dog, which resembled the one in the musical Annie, together most mornings, and Nancy was known for her annual garage sales.

Bochicchio, a stock analyst, had run her own business in recent years, according to state records.

Originally from New York, where she had lived in the Bensonhurst area of Brooklyn and on Long Island, she first moved into the house with then-husband Phillip Hauser, daughter Joey and her elderly mother more than seven years ago. The couple were divorced in September 2006.

Bochicchio's mother, who had been placed in a nearby assisted-living center, died on Easter Sunday in 2004. Bochicchio stopped putting up Christmas decorations for two years while she grieved her mother's death.

On Thursday, neighbors mourned the mother and daughter the same way.

One by one, the red, green and white lights twinkling in bushes and trees disappeared as neighbors remembered the family.

"I can't believe it," one neighbor said. "I don't feel like doing anything."

The neighborhood is devastated, said Staci Keller, president of the Hidden Lake Homeowners Association.

"Everybody is in such shock," Keller said. "Our prayers are with their entire family."

At St. Jude Catholic School in Boca Raton, Joey's classmates prepared for their annual Christmas pageant Thursday night. Students wore red Santa hats and filed onto the stage to tell their favorite Christmas memories.

As they faced the audience of more than 200, Principal Debbie Armstrong asked for a moment of silence to remember a mother and her little girl.

"We are going to dedicate the ceremony to Joey, her mother, her family, her friends and to all of those who knew and loved her," she said. "We're hurt. We're saddened. We're missing part of our family. We know Joey and her mother are with Christ."

After Thanksgiving, police had stepped up patrols in public areas and shopping centers, including Town Center, in an effort to combat crime. Police have been using uniformed officers in marked patrol cars, plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles, bicycle patrol officers and other forms of surveillance.

Police reminded the public to be vigilant while shopping and to report suspicious activity. Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call (561) 338-1352.

The mall offers a shuttle service that starts two hours before the mall opens and ends an hour after it closes. Drivers who don't want to walk to or from the parking lot can call the service at (561) 368-6817.