Charles Stuart

Carol Ann Stuart (née DiMaiti; born March 26, 1959) was murdered on October 23, 1989, by her husband, Charles Michael "Chuck" Stuart Jr. (December 18, 1959 – January 4, 1990).

Both persons were white.

Charles Stuart claimed that a black man had carjacked their car in Boston and shot both his pregnant wife and himself.

His statement to police set off a months-long manhunt by the Boston Police Department for a purported black assailant.

Police actions, with widespread stop and frisk of African-American residents in Mission Hill, was supported by the Suffolk County District Attorney.

The hunt lasted until Charles' younger brother, Matthew, confessed that Carol was killed by Charles to collect her life insurance payout.

Soon afterward Charles committed suicide.

The shooting occurred in Boston's predominantly black Mission Hill neighborhood.

It generated intense and sustained media attention both nationally and in Boston as an alleged example of black on white crime.

During this period Suffolk County District Attorney Newman A. Flanagan lobbied the state legislature to pass a revised law to reinstitute the death penalty.

Police arrested William "Willie" Bennett, a 39-year-old black man from Roxbury, on unrelated charges, but soon the investigation centered on Bennett.

The media reported as though his guilt was certain.

In 1989, Charles Stuart was the general manager at Edward F. Kakas & Sons, an upscale fur clothing shop on fashionable Newbury Street in Boston, Massachusetts.

His wife, Carol, a tax attorney, was pregnant with their first child.

On October 23, the couple attended childbirth classes at Brigham and Women's Hospital and drove through Roxbury on their way home.

Stuart later told police that a young adult African-American gunman with a raspy voice and wearing a striped tracksuit forced his way into their car at a stoplight, ordered them to drive to nearby Mission Hill.

There he robbed them, and shot Charles in the stomach and Carol in the head.

Stuart said he managed to drive away and call the emergency number 9-1-1 on his car phone.

While on the phone with 9-1-1, Charles never mentioned that his wife was pregnant and never spoke to her directly during the call.

Although he left the crime scene, he claimed he could not see street signs and did not know where he was.

Gary McLaughlin, a state police dispatcher, found their car by telling responding police cars to shut off their sirens and then having them turn them back on, one by one, until dispatchers could hear the closest siren through Charles's phone.

On the night of the murder, the CBS reality television series Rescue 911 was riding with Boston Emergency Medical Services personnel.

The crew took dramatic footage of the couple being extricated from the car and wheeled to the ambulance.

Other footage included Stuart straining to speak with ambulance workers, and graphic scenes of his rushed entry to the hospital's emergency room.

Carol died at 2:50 a.m. on October 24 at Brigham & Women's Hospital.

Before she died, doctors delivered her baby by caesarean section.

Baptized in the intensive care unit, the baby was named Christopher William.

Carol's funeral took place on October 28 at St. James Church in her hometown of Medford, Massachusetts.

During the funeral, Brian Parsons, a friend of Charles, read a note that Charles had written in the hospital to his wife:

'' Good night sweet wife, my love.

God has called you to his side, '' it began.

The note asked the public to forgive the murderer.

The baby Christopher was nine weeks premature and had suffered trauma and oxygen deprivation due to the shooting; he died 17 days later.

Both deaths were ruled homicides.

A private funeral service was held for Christopher on November 20, 1989.

Both Carol and Christopher were buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden, Massachusetts, under Carol's maiden name, DiMaitti.

Boston Police detectives Robert Ahearn and Robert Tinlin immediately suspected Stuart because he seemed too calm when recounting the shootings.

They were overruled by their superiors, who pursued Stuart's description of the assailant.

The case was assigned to lead detective Peter O’Malley.

During the manhunt, the city's police indiscriminately used controversial stop and frisk tactics on young black men, which heightened racial tensions.