Saturday, May 20, 2017

Slow Saturday Special: Joy Ride

"Teen arrested after stolen-car chase through Merrimack Valley" by Maddie Kilgannon Globe Correspondent  January 27, 2017

A Lawrence teenager led police on a stolen car chase through multiple Merrimack Valley communities Thursday before he was arrested, while a teenage girl who was driving a stolen minivan in the chase eluded police, authorities said.

The 17-year-old who was arrested was driving a white Lexus, while the teenage girl was driving a Toyota Sienna minivan. Both vehicles had been reported stolen in Lowell Thursday.

Lowell police said the theft of the Lexus was captured on surveillance video. Later that day, Dracut police pursued the Lexus and the minivan as they passed through town, but ended their pursuit at the town line with Methuen.

Methuen officers soon spotted the two vehicles and tried to pull them over, but both drivers sped off, leading police on a chase that lasted two minutes, police said.

The driver of the Lexus pulled over and tried to escape on foot, but was captured after a brief chase.

The girl in the Sienna drove away, police said.

The 17-year-old, who was not identified because of his age, was arraigned Friday and released on a $500 bail warning and told not to drive without a valid license. He is due back in court in late March for a pre-trial hearing.

Lowell Police Captain Timothy Crowley said a third vehicle, a black Cadillac, was stolen on Thursday. The alleged thieves drove up in it when they stole the Lexus, which was parked in a driveway on Smith Avenue, he said.

The owner had turned the engine on to warm it up and left the keys in the ignition.

“These are crimes of opportunity,” Crowley said.

--more--"

Look who had the pole position:

"‘I’m lucky to be alive,’ says man whose car was hit by falling pole on I-93" by Maddie Kilgannon Globe Correspondent  January 13, 2017

According to a Massachusetts Department of Transportation statement issued Thursday, the pole that fell on Bill Sprague’s car was one of 120 scheduled to be replaced this year.

“It’s just something that could have been prevented,” he said with a sigh. “Somebody dropped the ball. If I were in charge of that operation and those poles had been deemed unsafe, I would have had them all taken down immediately.”

Sprague said no one from MassDOT had contacted him as of Friday afternoon. He said that he planned to look into hiring a lawyer early next week.

In a statement Friday, MassDOT Highway Administrator Thomas J. Tinlin said that as a precautionary measure, the agency on Thursday night conducted “testing on 79 light poles on I-93 between Boston’s Savin Hill neighborhood and the Braintree split to verify the existing condition of the poles.”

Teams checked the metal thickness and condition of the base plates, as well as bolts and welds, and “nothing was found that is cause for concern and as a result no light poles were removed,” Tinlin said.

Sprague, meanwhile, was grateful that he had narrowly averted a tragedy.

“I got lucky,” Sprague said. After a pause, he continued, “Only six inches higher and I wouldn’t be here.”

--more--"

Meanwhile, in the breakdown lane:

"Man wanted in girlfriend’s slaying commits suicide, prosecutor says" by Cristela Guerra Globe Staff  January 10, 2017

BROCKTON — In Matias Andrade’s house off Grove Street, friends and family quietly mourned in shadows Tuesday. The curtains were drawn. The room was dark.

Andrade, 38, was dead. So was his 30-year-old ex-girlfriend, Eugenia Gomes Monteiro. Authorities had been searching for Andrade since Monday, when his former girlfriend was discovered with a fatal shot to the head. Investigators suspected Andrade.

Andrade hanged himself in the woods off Interstate 93 in Braintree, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said....

Another case of “domestic violence.”

--more--"

SeeBrockton woman is shot dead in apartment

Time to stop and get some chow:

"Stoneham man charged with sexual assault in restaurant parking lot" by Maddie Kilgannon Globe Correspondent  February 03, 2017

A Stoneham man was arraigned Friday on charges that he sexually assaulted a woman last month in the parking lot of a Malden restaurant, prosecutors said.

Malden police arrested John Panaggio, 38, Thursday after he was identified in surveillance footage take from the Dockside Restaurant on Jan. 20, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s office. Panaggio turned himself in to police, prosecutors said, and he was charged with indecent assault.

Prosecutors said Panaggio got into the woman’s parked car and touched her inappropriately without her consent. She asked him to leave her car several times before he did, prosecutors said.

The woman did not know Panaggio, said Middlesex District Attorney spokeswoman Elizabeth Vlock.

Panaggio was released on personal recognizance and ordered to stay away from the woman. He is expected to return to court March 15.

--more--"

Wanna stop at the mall?

"Worcester man stabbed and robbed at Auburn Mall" by Maddie Kilgannon Globe Correspondent  March 24, 2017

A 62-year-old Worcester man who went to the Auburn Mall Wednesday to keep an online appointment ended up being stabbed and robbed by a man and a woman he allowed into his car, Auburn police said.

The name of the victim was not released, and police would not provide information about who the man expected to meet at the mall and what the meeting was supposed to be about.

Probably got it off the back page.

Police said the victim arrived at the mall just after 6 p.m. Wednesday, expecting to meet one person, but was met by a man and a woman identified as Eric Collette, 24, and Ann Delcid, 31, both of Auburn.

All three people went into the victim’s car for a short amount of time where Delcid sat in the back seat, Collette sat in the front passenger seat, and the victim sat in the driver’s seat, Auburn Police Detective Sergeant Richard Mills said in a telephone interview.

At one point, both Delcid and Collette allegedly armed themselves with knives. Delcid allegedly reached from behind the victim’s seat and held a knife to the victim’s throat as Collette slashed the victim’s pocket, and stole his wallet, Mills said.

The suspects fled the vehicle and left the victim with a half-inch stab wound in his neck and with wounds to his leg and right hand, Mills said.

After being stabbed, the victim seemed to have panicked, Mills said, and decided to try driving home despite his injuries. At one point, he called a family member who alerted authorities that he had been stabbed near the mall, police said.

The victim drove into the parking lot of an emergency clinic near his home but remained in the car, where he continued to bleed from his wounds, Mills said. A medical professional from the clinic spotted the wounded man sitting in the car and provided emergency care until an ambulance arrived, he said.

When police arrived on the scene “initially [the victim] wasn’t super cooperative,” Mills said.

The victim was then taken to UMass Hospital, where he was treated for two stab wounds, police said.

Mills was able to get a copy of the ad that the victim had been responding to and used the phone number on the ad to track down Collette.

Delcid and Collette were both arrested Thursday, police said.

Collete was arrested earlier this month for allegedly stealing $5,000 from a liquor store he was working at, and Delcid is facing charges for allegedly breaking into a vehicle in Uxbridge last December, Mills said.

--more--"

They almost got away with it:

"Blackstone man, once jailed for threatening to kill Clinton, held in N.J." by Travis Andersen Globe Staff  January 14, 2017

A Blackstone man who is a person of interest in the murder of his 83-year-old father, and who previously threatened to kill President Clinton, was ordered held on $300,000 bail Friday in New Jersey as a fugitive from justice, officials said.

Glenn R. Armstrong, 48, was not represented by counsel and was held at a detention center on Friday night. He was arrested Thursday in Mount Laurel, N.J., on an outstanding Massachusetts warrant for failing to provide a DNA sample to authorities after a prior conviction.

He would have no choice were he arrested now.

Earlier Thursday, Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said during a news conference that Armstrong was a person of interest in the slaying of his father, Walter Armstrong, who was found dead Wednesday in a home that the two men shared. Officials have not disclosed how Walter Armstrong was killed.

The next court date for Glenn Armstrong has not been set, and it was not clear on Friday when he will be brought back to Massachusetts, or if prosecutors will charge him with killing his father.

Glenn Armstrong has served multiple prison terms, most recently in 2015 for assaulting a bartender in Blackstone.

In 1996, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for telling a Falmouth ferry clerk in 1994 that he was traveling to Martha’s Vineyard to kill President Clinton, who was vacationing on the island at the time....

--more--"

Also see:

Blackstone man arrested in New Jersey after father’s slaying

Blackstone man eyed in elderly father’s death fights extradition

He is now being held without bail.

16-year-old girl killed in Stoneham crash

That took the fun out of it.