TIME January 22, 1990

 

 

 

January 11, 1990

Confusion Grows Over Boston Murder

By FOX BUTTERFIELD, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

 

LEAD: Confusion over the case of Charles Stuart increased today as an insurance company denied a report that it had prepared a $480,000 check for Mr. Stuart, whose pregnant wife was shot to death last October. Confusion over the case of Charles Stuart increased today as an insurance company denied a report that it had prepared a $480,000 check for Mr. Stuart, whose pregnant wife was shot to death last October. A spokesman for the Prudential Insurance Company of America, Joseph A. Vecchione, said an exhaustive computer search by Prudential could find no policy issued in the name of Carol Stuart, Mr. Stuart's wife, nor any check made out to Mr. Stuart.''There simply is no check,'' Mr. Vecchione said by telephone from the company's offices in Newark. The Boston Globe, citing anonymous sources, reported today that Prudential had processed the check to Mr. Stuart for a claim on his wife's insurance by the time Mr. Stuart committed suicide last Thursday. Mr. Stuart leaped from a bridge over Boston harbor after he was identified as a suspect in the case. Richard P. Gulla, a spokesman for The Globe, said, ''As of this point we stand by what was reported in this morning's paper.''

Motive for Murder Reported

The Globe also reported that the police now believe Mr. Stuart's motive for killing his wife was to obtain insurance money to finance a new career as a restaurant owner. The paper's account was prominently featured across the top of the front page under a bold two-line headline as the Boston news media continued its intensive coverage of the case. The paper said the police had found materials in his house in suburban Reading on how to start a business and were told by friends of Mr. Stuart that he planned to open a restaurant. Mr. Stuart had been the manager of the Kakas & Sons fur shop on fashionable Newbury Street in Boston. Relatives say he attended Northeast Vocational High School in his hometown of Revere, where he studied culinary arts, and had worked as a cook in several small restaurants in Revere. At one of them, the now-defunct Driftwood, he met his wife. Despite a series of revelations over the past week since Mr. Stuart, 29 years old, committed suicide, there are still some crucial unanswered questions about the Stuart case. The case aroused national interest and inflamed racial passions in Boston when Mr. Stuart asserted that he and his wife had been shot by a black gunman shortly after the couple left a birthing class at a Boston hospital on Oct. 23.

Unresolved Questions

Last week, Mr. Stuart's younger brother, Matthew, 23 years old, suddenly turned the case upside down when he told the police that by prearrangement with his brother he had picked up the .38 caliber revolver used in the shooting and Mrs. Stuart's handbag from the car where she laying dying. Mr. Stuart sat in the same car with a stomach wound that the police now believe was self-inflicted.

 

Among the unresolved questions in the case are these:

 

* How much insurance did Mr. Stuart stand to collect from his wife's death? He had already received $82,000 from a policy taken out from the firm where she worked as a lawyer, and he had applied to collect on a separate $100,000 policy from the Travelers Life Insurance Company. The police have told reporters there are more policies but will not provide details.

 

* If Charles Stuart shot himself intentionally as part of an elaborate and tragic hoax, why did he wound himself in the stomach causing a near fatal injury? Mr. Stuart remained in Boston City Hospital for six weeks where he had to undergo two operations to repair his wound, and he ended up with a colostomy bag. A spokesman for the hospital said today that the surgeon who operated on Mr. Stuart ''at no time suspected the wound was self-inflicted.''

 

* Did Charles Stuart tell his brother Matthew that they were only going to pull off a fake robbery of his wife's jewels for an insurance scam, as Matthew Stuart has told the police, or did he hint at a darker purpose? When Matthew Stuart arrived to pick up the gun and handbag, did he see Mrs. Stuart's body or that Charles Stuart was badly bleeding in the car. If not, why not?

 

*When did Charles Stuart's three brothers and two sisters learn about his role in the killing? The Boston Globe has repeatedly reported that some members of the family learned about Charles Stuart's actions within three days of the incident. The Stuarts have avoided the media since Charles Stuart committed suicide.

 

The Stuarts' actions could determine whether they are criminally charged in the case. Under Massachusetts law, a person who learns about a crime after the fact, and who only has knowledge of it, cannot be held legally responsible. But if a family member discussed the crime beforehand or became involved in a conspiracy to cover it up, he or she would become an accessory, criminal lawyers not involved in the case say. The Globe today carried what it described as the transcript of a telephone call from Michael Stuart, another brother, to one of two sisters in the Stuart family, Shelley Yandoli, in which they discussed telling their parents about Charles Stuart's real actions. The call was said to have been made on Jan. 2, two days before Charles Stuart committed suicide, and was automatically recorded at the Revere Fire Department where Michael Stuart worked.

 

Shelley: ''We're all meeting here right now. We're going to Mom's.''

Michael: ''What are you going to tell them?''

Shelley: We're going to tell them we know that Chuck was involved. We're not going to say that he killed her.'' Michael: ''Yeh, right.

Shelley: ''O.K.''

Michael: ''Wow.''

Shelley: ''I know, Mike, get ready.''

Michael: Sigh.

 

Issue of Romantic Link

Another unanswered question is the relationship between Charles Stuart and Deborah Allen, a 22-year-old graduate student in business administration at Babson College who had worked at the fur store last summer with Mr. Stuart. The police have told reporters they believe there was a romantic link between the two and that this might help explain the murder. But Thomas E. Dwyer Jr., a lawyer for the Allen family, said today that the romance was all on Mr. Stuart's side and that Ms. Allen had spurned his advances.

 

 

 

 

 

January 12, 1990

Boston Murder Suspect Sought a Brother's Help, Lawyer Says

By CONSTANCE L. HAYS, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

 

LEAD: Charles Stuart asked one of his brothers to help him kill his wife ''weeks before'' she was fatally shot on Oct. 23, a lawyer for the brother said today. Charles Stuart asked one of his brothers to help him kill his wife ''weeks before'' she was fatally shot on Oct. 23, a lawyer for the brother said today. But the lawyer, Richard I. Clayman, said the response of his client, Michael Stuart, was, '' 'I'm not getting involved in any sort of crazy thing you're talking about.' '' The lawyer, who faced reporters and camera crews today with Michael and Mark Stuart and their sisters, Shelley Yandoli and Neysa Porter, insisted that there had been no ''family conspiratorial scenario'' to support Charles Stuart's tale of being abducted, robbed and shot by a black gunman as he and his wife, Carol, left Brigham and Women's Hospital here. The news conference was not attended by another brother, Matthew Stuart, who went to the police on Jan. 3 with the evidence that made his brother Charles a prime suspect. The next day Charles Stuart leaped to his death from a Boston Harbor bridge.

Legal Questions Raised

Mr. Clayman said that Michael Stuart, a Revere firefighter, knew three days after the shooting that Charles Stuart had been involved in the death of his wife. But Mr. Clayman said other members of the Stuart family had not learned of Charles Stuart's involvement until the period from New Year's Day to Jan. 3. The disclosures raised new legal and moral questions about whether the brothers and sisters acted properly once they knew of falsehoods in Charles Stuart's tale about the circumstances that led to the death of his wife, who was seven months pregnant, and their son Christopher, who lived for 17 days after his delivery by emergency Caesarean section. At the news conference, Mr. Clayman was asked about a conversation between Charles and Michael Stuart, rumored here for several days, and replied, ''There may have been an early, disjointed, vague conversation by, between Charles Stuart and my client Michael Stuart, weeks before Oct. 23, which at that time had no significance to Michael.'' Michael Stuart's response, he said, was ''a definitive, 'I don't know what you're talking about but I'm not getting involved in any sort of crazy thing you're talking about.' ''

'It Had Some Significance'

Mr. Clayman said that, upon reflection, his client's conversation about killing Charles Stuart's wife now might seem to be a sign that all was not right. ''I reviewed it with him and it doesn't have a hell of a lot of significance now,'' Mr. Clayman said. ''But in retrospect, after examining all the data, an argument can be made that it should have had, or why didn't it, or at least now I think someone could argue that it had some significance.'' The lawyer added: ''Mrs. Yandoli and Mrs. Porter and Mark Stuart never knew anything directly or indirectly relative to the homicide until at least Jan. 1, 1990. This family wants it to be known that they had no information about what their brother Charles may have done until the aforementioned time.'' But Michael Stuart has told investigators he and his brother Matthew had discussed the shooting by Oct. 26, Mr. Clayman said. ''Within three days of the Oct. 23 homicide, my client Michael Stuart received information from Matthew Stuart,'' the lawyer said. The Stuart family members who appeared with Mr. Clayman today are scheduled to testify before a Suffolk County grand jury on Friday, he added.

'Hands Are Legally Clean'

Mr. Clayman said his client had broken no laws. ''I am comfortable after an examination of this entire scenario that there was no violation of the law,'' he said. ''His hands are legally clean.'' Under Massachusetts law, a person who learns of a crime after the fact, and who only has knowledge of it, cannot be held legally responsible. But if a family member discussed the crime beforehand or became involved in a conspiracy to cover it up, he or she would become an accessory, criminal lawyers not involved in the case say. Marvin N. Geller, a lawyer for Carol Stuart's family, said the family had no comment on Mr. Clayman's statements. A lawyer for Matthew Stuart, the brother who went to the police. also would not comment. Thomas E. Dwyer Jr., the lawyer for Deborah Allen, a 23-year-old graduate student who worked at the Kakas & Sons fur shop in Boston, where Charles Stuart was the manager, issued a statement today saying she was ''never romantically involved'' with Mr. Stuart. ''Mr. Stuart asked me to call daily and visit him,'' the statement said. ''I told him that I felt it was inappropriate for me to visit because this was a time for family, but I agreed to telephone him.''

Telephone Calls Confirmed

The statement by Ms. Allen also confirmed that she had telephoned Mr. Stuart frequently after the shooting, using his telephone credit card number. There were three reasons, she said in the statement. ''First, because of my school and work schedule, I frequently called him from pay telephones at Babson College. Second, I was concerned about he cost of our lengthy telephone calls, which I knew I could not afford on a student's budget. Third, I knew my mother was uneasy about my contact with someone associated with a highly publicized violent crime. Although I believed I had an obligation to continue to support Mr. Stuart, I wanted to avoid unnecessarily worrying my mother when she received our telephone bills at home.'' The statement continued: ''At some point in late December it became apparent to me that Mr. Stuart no longer needed my support. I firmly told Mr. Stuart that as a friend there was nothing more I could do for him. That was my last conversation with him.'' The statement was accompanied by statements from Ms. Allen's boyfriend, Brian Heffernan, and another friend, Beth Madison. Both confirmed what Ms. Allen's statement said about the telephone calls and the breakoff point. A spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney's office, which is conducting the investigation, said the district attorney already knew the information Mr. Clayman disclosed today. As to whether any laws had been broken by the Stuart siblings, the spokesman, John M. Julian, said, ''We're going to let the grand jury look at the evidence and decide if any charges are brought.'' Ms. Allen said in her statement that she had received gifts from Charles Stuart. ''My friendship with Mr. Stuart was not romantic,'' the statement said. ''I socialized with him both alone and with others on a few occasions. The only presents I received from Mr. Stuart were a pair of sneakers, a sweatshirt and a joke gift.''

 
 
 
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