Murder in Boston (18 page)

In its case to the higher court, the
Globe
argued that information contained in autopsy reports that are part of a public record, such as death certificates (which are documents with considerably less detail), should also be available to the public.

The medical examiner countered with the argument that autopsies performed by physicians are diagnostic in nature, and since they yield detailed, intimate information about that person’s physical condition, they should be considered medical records and thereby confidential.

The appeals court agreed with the medical examiner, pointing out that certain medical records, such as hospital records, results of AIDS tests, records pertaining to venereal disease, and reports of infectious diseases, were already specifically exempted from the disclosure law. The legislature also had already provided for the release of some autopsy reports, specifically citing those of persons who died in jail (in which case the autopsy report would go only to the next of kin) or to a defendant charged with murder. If the legislature had wanted to give the public access to other autopsy reports, it would have done so, the court ruled. But until it did, the court said it had no alternative but to rule against the
Globe
. To decide otherwise would be “to distort the plain statutory language,” and the disclosure of such reports would constitute “a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

Apparently none of the news organizations in town felt it was worth another court fight to try to get access to Chuck’s and Carol’s autopsy reports. This was unfortunate because the reports likely contain valuable information, particularly about the gunshot wounds and their angles of entry. If it can be substantiated that Carol was almost certainly shot from the backseat, as some investigators have hinted may be the case, then it could be deduced that Chuck either had to climb into the rear of the car to shoot her or a third person was involved. Similarly, if it could be determined that Chuck’s wound was not self-inflicted, or if there was physical evidence to indicate he may not have voluntarily leaped off the Tobin Bridge, that could open a whole new field of inquiry.

According to the
Globe
, investigators also were beginning to question Matthew’s account of what happened the night Carol and Chuck were shot. But if they were turning up any incriminating information, they kept it to themselves. The
Globe
story, woven mainly from interviews with Matthew’s friends and family members, quoted an unidentified cousin as saying that Matthew was extremely loyal to Chuck since he thought his oldest brother was “virtually God.”

Another cousin, also unidentified, conceded that Matthew knew Chuck was involved in some sort of illegal activity but probably did not think it was going to be a shooting. “He knew his brother was in some sort of scheme,” the cousin told the
Globe
, “but to go from insurance fraud to this type of tragedy is a horrific leap. Matthew is a twenty-three-year-old man, but there are some things you never get over, and tagging along with your older brother may be one of them.”

One relative who was willing to speak on the record, a rarity, was Patrick Reardon, owner of the bar where Shelly worked and where her brothers liked to hang out. He reckoned that Matthew went along because Chuck asked him to, although he had no idea what he was really getting into. “It was a big brother telling a little brother a good way to make a buck,” Reardon said. “Anybody else in their right mind would have said, ‘Chuckie, you’re crazy.

Among the family, at least from what the cousins told the
Globe
, there was little doubt that Matthew was telling anything but the truth, that he had been a naive youth misled by an older brother whom he idolized.

It was October 24 all over again, with Matthew’s name substituted for Chuck’s and Chuck assuming the role of the black assailant. Seemingly no one could be found who wanted to say anything detrimental about Matthew or make any comment that would not excuse his action. Except one. The
Globe
uncovered a single source who hinted that Matthew might not be as conscientious as he had been painted thus far. The interviewee, referred to as “a family friend who did not want to be named,” said he felt Matthew did not go to authorities to save Willie Bennett. “Matthew’s no knight in shining armor,” the man said. “He did it to save himself.” The man apparently was referring to what he interpreted as an attempt by Matthew to go to authorities before they came to him, thus insuring possible immunity from prosecution. How successful Matthew would be would not be determined until much, much later.

10:30
A
.
M
.

While the newspapers fought it out in black and white and the TV stations dueled with color footage, Chuck Stuart was quietly memorialized in a subdued, secretive service in the 102-year-old wooden church in which he had once served as an altar boy.

A reporter who had been stationed at the Immaculate Conception Church in Revere in anticipation of the service approached a husky, official-looking man when people began filing into the building.

“Is this the Charles Stuart funeral?” he asked.

“No,” the man snapped. “This is the Pazzola funeral. Stuart won’t be buried until Monday.”

Reporters knew better. An hour before, two men who were known to be friends of Chuck’s had shown up wearing what apparently was ubiquitous clothing in Boston: jogging suits. They went inside the funeral home, stayed a few minutes, then came out and circled the block several times. Then they went into a health spa across the street from the church and took positions at a window opening onto the street. They did not try to go inside the church and left when the service was over.

Confirmation that the funeral was Chuck’s came when Charles Sr. arrived, looking aged and creaky, wearing a short tan coat over a neat dark suit. He and Chuck’s mother, Dorothy, red-eyed and weary, sat in a front pew of the church that was still decorated with Christmas poinsettias. Nearby was Chuck’s bronze-colored casket, covered with roses.

Unlike Carol’s funeral, which had been attended by more than eight hundred people, including the governor, the police chief, the mayor, and the city’s highest-ranking Roman Catholic prelate, Chuck’s service was attended by fewer than one hundred mourners, discounting reporters. No one from Carol’s family attended.

Brian Parsons, who had read Chuck’s message at Carol’s funeral, was silent at his friend’s. The eulogy was delivered by the Reverend Richard Messina, who had never met Chuck. “We cannot explain the events of the past,” he said, adding prophetically, “And we may never understand them.”

As Chuck’s siblings looked grim and his parents wept, Messina continued. “I believe all of us come from God and that all of us will eventually go to God, even though we may indulge in the ways of the sinful and, yes, violent world. But even in our last moments, I believe God reaches out and touches our hearts; that he calls out to us. I believe that in the afterlife we are given the opportunity to make amends for our sins. For some it may take longer than others, but in the end we all return to God.”

When the priest distributed communion, among those going forward to receive the sacrament was Matthew, who was dressed in a dark suit and striped shirt, his curly hair tumbling below his collar. Matthew wept several times during the service and was comforted by an unidentified young woman.

After the mass, Matthew helped his father into a waiting limousine. Although he had been a pallbearer at his sister-in-law’s funeral, he did not help carry Chuck’s casket. That task was performed, sadly, by funeral home employees.

Although Chuck’s casket was taken to nearby Woodlawn Cemetery, it was not immediately lowered into the ground. Workers said it would be buried later at an undisclosed location. Family members apparently feared that feeling against Chuck was running so high in Boston that attempts might be made to desecrate his grave.

From the cemetery, the family went to Patrick Reardon’s bar, where a buffet had been set up in a back room. Conversation was muted, all but drowned out at times by shouts from the front of the tavern, where the football playoffs were being shown on a large television.

Chapter 16

January 7, 1990

With the turbulence of an unexpected winter storm, Debbie Allen blew into public consciousness on January’s first Sunday via the front page of the
Globe
. It was a bright, glorious day, but the sun probably offered little cheer to Chuck’s former coworker. Although she was not initially identified by name, a headline occupying all but one of the newspaper’s columns shrieked,
PROBERS LINK STUART
,
WOMAN
, and then, in a subhead, added, “Possible Romance Seen as One Motive.”

Running adjacent to a grim picture of an obviously infirm Charles Stuart, Sr., being supported on one side by a grimacing Matthew and on the other by daughter Neysa Porter, the story said that the woman (who would soon be identified as Debbie Allen) visited Chuck at the hospital and, using his telephone credit card, called him frequently while he was receiving treatment. It also said Chuck had bought a 14-karat-gold brooch to give to her for her birthday, which was the day before he died.

The
Globe
story noted that the woman refused to talk to reporters when they tried to intercept her as she was leaving a meeting with investigators, but the newspaper quoted police sources as saying it was the second time she had been interviewed by investigators. The first session had taken place in late October.

Twenty-four hours later the
Globe
had a second piece in which she was not only identified, but her picture was published. Grainy and shadow-splotched, the picture showed a blonde, her hair falling below her shoulders, maneuvering around a parked car. The cutline said it was a picture of Allen outside her home in suburban Millis.

An avid figure skater and ice hockey player, Allen had graduated from Brown University in the spring of 1989 and enrolled the following autumn in the MBA program at Babson College. She lived at home with her parents and two brothers.

Three days later, apparently feeling the heat and the need to comment, Allen issued a statement through a lawyer, Thomas Dwyer. She and Chuck had been friends since she started as a summer employee at Kakas & Sons two years before, she said, but the relationship had never been a physical one.

“I was never romantically involved with Charles Stuart,” she said in her statement. “I socialized with him both alone and with others on a few occasions. On more than one occasion, both Stuarts described their marriage to me in warm and loving terms.”

After the shooting, she said, she called Chuck to express her sympathy. He asked her to visit him in the hospital, but she demurred at first on grounds that she did not think it appropriate. However, she relented when he told her that others from Kakas & Sons had been stopping by. One time, she said, and one time only, she and her boyfriend, along with a female friend of hers, went to BCH.

After that, Chuck asked her to call him, but she put him off, saying the calls would show up on her family telephone bill and her parents would not approve. At that point Chuck gave her his telephone credit card and told her to use it instead. She did not say how often or how many times she telephoned him, but police said there were “numerous” calls, both to the hospital and to Chuck’s parents’ house after he was released.

“In our conversations,” the statement said stiffly, “Mr. Stuart told me about his physical condition and his visitors. I tried to distract him by telling him about graduate school and my friends.”

By late December Allen was beginning to worry about the continuing relationship, and she turned for advice to her boyfriend and the female friend who had gone with her on the hospital visit. They concluded that she should break off the relationship, that Chuck “no longer needed her constant support” and it was time for him “to grieve on his own.” She called to tell him that, she said, and that was her last conversation with him.

After the shooting, she said she had no reason to doubt Chuck’s story about being shot by a black gunman, nor did she doubt him when he told her that he had recognized the assailant during the lineup. He never hinted to her that he might have shot his wife. In her statement she did not refer to published reports quoting two of her friends as saying that Chuck had asked her soon after the shooting not to contradict what he had told police about the incident.

And the only presents Chuck had ever given her, she said, were “a pair of sneakers, a sweatshirt, and a joke gift.” For her twenty-third birthday on January 3 he had sent her a card. He did
not
give her a brooch or any other jewelry, she insisted.

After reading Allen’s statement, Dwyer told reporters that he had no doubt that Chuck wanted to extend the relationship beyond friendship. “But there is also no question that prior to his death, Debbie Allen made it quite clear to Mr. Stuart that the minimal relationship they had was over.” Then he added mysteriously: “Police possess a document wherein Mr. Stuart himself characterizes his relationship with Ms. Allen as one based solely on friendship.”