Saturday, May 13, 2017

Slow Saturday Special: Unlocked Trunk in Lowell?

Related: Lowell on Lock Down

"Lowell murder suspect found dead in trunk of car" by Travis Andersen and John R. Ellement Globe Staff  May 12, 2017

An exhaustive search for a man who allegedly killed his former girlfriend in a Lowell apartment building came to a stunning end Friday when a woman found the suspect’s body in the trunk of her car in Chelmsford, officials said.

The suspect, Ross Elliott, 51, was discovered around 1:45 p.m., when the woman spotted “what she thought was a hand sticking out” of the trunk and called 911, said Chelmsford police Chief James Spinney.

Elliott died from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, law enforcement authorities said during an afternoon press conference.

Elliott had allegedly shot his former girlfriend, 44-year-old Nicole White, Thursday around 7:30 a.m., while her daughter and other relatives were in her unit.

The killing shocked residents and prompted an intense search of the area by roughly 100 officers from the State Police, Lowell police, and other municipal departments.

Residents of the Highlands neighborhood were ordered to shelter in place Thursday as police searched from house to house for Elliott, whom authorities described as “armed and extremely dangerous.”

At some point, Elliott managed to sneak into the trunk of a car belonging to a Highlands resident, Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan and Lowell police Superintendent William Taylor said during the briefing Friday.

HOW?

The woman drove her car to Chelmsford for a medical appointment Friday and made the macabre discovery of Elliott in a parking lot near Research Place, officials said.

Ryan said Elliott sustained “what appeared to be a gunshot wound” and that investigators “don’t have any reason to think [the injury] was anything other than self-inflicted.”

Ryan lamented the “life of a mother lost to domestic violence” so close to Mother’s Day weekend. She said investigators do not know when Elliott got into the trunk of the car.

I ask again, HOW?

Elliott, whom Taylor had described as “armed, dangerous and increasingly desperate,’’ was released from state prison in 2014 after finishing a 10-year sentence imposed for a 2004 incident in which he tried to kill his then-girlfriend with a knife.

He was prevented from carrying out the murder at the last moment by Lowell police who disarmed him, officials said.

White was not the woman Elliott nearly killed in that 2004 attack.

Lowell City Manager Kevin Murphy called the police search “courageous and heroic.”

They were just doing their job.

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Maybe he was drunk?

You would think these guys would learn.

To the airport please.

NDU:

"Newburyport man arrested after leading police on wild chase" by John Hilliard Globe Correspondent  February 18, 2017

A Newburyport man was arrested Saturday after leading state and local police on a wild chase by car and foot through parts of Lynn, Revere, and Saugus, twice abandoning his car, before he was taken into custody in a neighborhood, according to the State Police.

Stephen M. Staffiery, 48, was charged with 16 violations, including operating under the influence of drugs, possession of heroin, and failure to stop for police, State Police said in a statement....

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