"Prisoner commits suicide in Shirley" by Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | March 23, 2010
A former Chicopee man who had been in prison since 1976 for murdering a real estate agent was found hanged in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, according to a spokeswoman for the state prison system....
Leslie Walker, executive director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, said Steven Carey’s death was the third suicide in the state’s prison system of which she is aware this year.
Carey was serving a sentence for second-degree murder for the fatal stabbing and strangulation in September 1976 of 62-year-old Margaret Rossow. The Longmeadow woman was found dead in a vacant Springfield house that she had been showing to a man that police said she thought was a prospective buyer.
During a weeklong trial that ended with a guilty plea by Carey, a police officer testified that Carey said the motive of the attack had been robbery.
Hampden Superior Court Judge Paul Tamburello called the crime a “brutal and senseless murder.’’
Carey has been eligible for parole since 1991, Diane Wiffin, the spokeswoman for the Department of Correction, said.
After his imprisonment, Carey emerged as a savvy jailhouse lawyer, or untrained legal advocate, who helped inmates prepare legal challenges, according to Walker.
He “helped less able prisoners with their legal work,’’ she said.Not anymore, cui bono?
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Related: The Sleepy Hollow of Massachusetts
