Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage and Reckoning docuseries on HBO

OP continues to post shit no none cares about…she needs to touch grass.

You know I'm not.

I'm watching. This happened when I was in high school and my first video productions assignment was a newscast about the case. The case is interesting, it was always obvious it was him and I want to hear more about his family lying for him and his girlfriend, etc. Instead we're hearing about racism and how unjust it all was. That's a valid point but it's getting way too preachy and boring.

I'm not since it was all over the New England news so there would be nothing new to me.

It’s valid when you consider the Boston Police rumbled just about every black male in Boston, given that her husband killed her in a black neighborhood.

There was a popular TV movie that was made less than a year later with THIRTYSOMETHING's Ken Olin.

Not very much information about the couple or Chuck’s extended family.

Carol was a tax attorney married to a blue-collar guy who worked in a fur shop? How did that happen in the 80s?

Charles Stuart killed his very pregnant wife after attending a birthing class.

He blamed an anonymous black man who never existed. The BPD then went on a racist manhunt causing great harm to the Mission Hill neighborhood.

Charles' then hot brother Matthew was given the gun to dispose of. The gun was passed to Mathew by Charles, over his dead wifes' body and out the passenger side window of the car he killed her in. The brother saw nothing (think about the gun passing) and was acquitted of all responsibility.

This whole case was a travesty.

and P.S. Matthew probably shot his brother and Charles was probably thrown off the Tobin bridge. The wifes' family was mafia connected.

They met while working at a restaurant, she was earning money for school. He definitely married up and he was worried she'd quit her job when the baby came so he had to kill her first.

And Kakas was hardly a "fur shop".

I found his story totally believable.

I watched it. Although the race aspect of it was on the top layer I didn't like that we knew nothing of her. A woman expecting a baby is killed by her own husband- what was he really like? What she was like? What type of marriage did they have? None of her family or friends came forward.

I get these two stories mixed up.

R12, this case was well before the true crime genre exploded, so the idea that the spouse/lover was the killer might not have been as top of mind back then.

What happened to Chuck’s friend who was also charged for a lesser offense?

I lived in Boston then, and every time there was new information it was NEWS. You could not find a newspaper (remember those?) to buy for love or money, they sold out instantly. While the show's focus on the Black community is perfectly worthwhile, I, too, wish there was a bit more focus on Charles and Carol's families. But I've enjoyed seeing all the footage of Boston back then.

Charles' family and close friends knew the truth long before he was charged.

That's why they're keeping quiet.

You have to remember that the black population in all of New England -- which comprises the states of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Vermont -- is only around 7%.

Mission Hill, where the murder took place, was a neighborhood that was/is mostly minorities.

I just got a Breaking News Alert from the Boston Globe:

[quote]More than 34 years after Charles Stuart shot his pregnant wife and blamed a Black man for the crime, Mayor Michelle Wu plans to issue a formal apology from the city to two men who were wrongly linked to the shooting. Wu will hold a press conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday at City Hall to issue apologies to Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett, her office said.

I just finished watching the 3rd episode.

I thought it was excellent given the limited information the filmmakers had to deal with.

It's for this reason the story of the Black community is front and center in the documentary because they understandably have a lot to say on the subject.

In contrast only one of the police officers agreed to be interviewed - the unrepentant conservative slob.

And (what a surprise) no one from either Charles or Carol Stuart's family or any of their friends agreed to tell what they knew.

In a way, their staying quiet tells you a lot about the kind of people they are.

That cop who was interviewed was breathtakingly racist. Guess it shouldn’t be a shock but he expressed not one bit of regret about his actions or the impact of the investigation on the black community.

Matthew was a complete idiot.

If Chuck hadn’t involved his idiot brother, he probably would have gotten away with it.

R22 I wanted to reach through my tv screen and punch that guy. He was awful.

I haven’t watched it yet but I’m going to.

Her brother was my principal in junior high school. I think I first found out about the story when he did an article from a Boston newspaper and I was really shocked.

And then I remember seeing it on Lifetime because I think it had been 10 years and the story was back in the news cycle.

I always thought he was gay.

I remember the talk was that people were slow to believe the husband did it because he was shot in the stomach. Very risky, painful and with a long recovery.

Is Michelle Wu inviting them to the Electeds of Color holiday party, R20?

[quote] Mission Hill, where the murder took place, was a neighborhood that was/is mostly minorities.

My grandmother grew up on Mission Hill in the early 1900s, when it was mostly Irish.

Presently, the Mission Hill population is 34.7% African American, 39.6% White, 24.6% Latino, and 9.7% Asian, making it far more racially diverse than any other neighborhood in Boston.

His hairdresser was definitely in the closet.

I hope this guy dies in extreme pain

Is talking to me or to you R30? his wall eye just confused me

R20 Presumably delivered so as to steer the narrative away from the "Electeds of Color" party brouhaha.

Enough about the party bullshit please.

It is a tradition that has been held by former mayors but they were white men.

I believe the apology was genuine and very much in character for our current mayor.

Mayor Wu has been at odds with the BPD since she was elected. The "party" misdirection was all about a new police contract.

Please stop.

R32, it couldn’t simply be because the case is again top of mind with the new HBO documentary, could it!

It was a cut way, way above your average true crime documentary.

Agree that there should have been more about/from the wife's family, but I also understand if they didn't want to participate.

Some of the interviews in the first episode were shockingly racist even for the time. And everyone talked like Cliff on "Cheers" — that accent! And the horrible cop had just gotten even more horrible over the years. Apparently it's not worth being a Boston cop any more when you can't just stop someone at random and rough them up.

The brother Matthew Stuart seemed purposely picked by Charles because he was so damn stupid. (But hot in a blue-collar way in that white tank top!).

I had no idea Boston was so racist.

Have the families ever given any interviews?

[quote]I had no idea Boston was so racist.

Now or then? Because how racist can it be when they elected an Asian mayor?

Then @R38

R26 yeah, you should get shot in the arm like I did, less risky.

The late Boston Celtic Bill Russell was quite vocal about the racism of Boston in the 1960s.

It seemed padded out for 3 episodes. The turn from Episode #1 to #2 was dramatic. It's interesting that the officers assigned to him in the hospital didn't believe him.

Curious about her family--did they see this guy as a good catch? Did they believe his story. The brother was a fuckup. The middle brother doesn't get mentioned very much--I wonder if he was a screw-up, too. The wife's father apparently didn't like Chuck. He also had a girlfriend at the furriers.

It’s very strange the reporters didn’t push to interview Charles Stuart or the bride’s family

My sister in law had a wall eye. I could not talk and look her in the eye(s) for 30 years. I talked to her nose.

It is good OP. I started watching the other day. I hate crackas.

Hi Defacto

[quote] and P.S. Matthew probably shot his brother

You know I suspected that myself when Matthew told his version of what happened. Charles was supposed to have driven all that way with that gunshot wound?

It’s also possible he shot them both.

I don’t remember there being a girlfriend mentioned. Chuck didn’t seem like the sharpest tool and I guess he was hoping the racist cops would let him get a way with it. My then boyfriend’s mom stored her fur at that shop and was acquainted with Chuck.

I I went back to articles from the time of the events rather than relying on "memory". People from Carol's world did talk to the media at that time, as did neighbors in Reading. It may be that with the passage of time it's too painful for her family. Also people may have died.

The racist cop interviewed was filled with so much hate. They need to investigate him and see if Hess involved in any shootings or beatings

Mike Barnicle, from Morning Joe fame.

There's also the accompanying podcasts (nine episodes) for the HBO series.

R35 There’s only Carl Dimatti. Her parents are dead and his children didn’t know her. I think they’re younger than me. I might have gone to school with his oldest son but I forget. He’s not young either, I think he was older than her.

He’s a genuinely nice guy. Like I said, he was my principal in junior high and I always thought he was gay. When I was a kid, I was more shocked he was married to a woman and had kids than I was about this story.

Truth be told, I was more fascinated with Debra Davis. Her body was finally found in 1999 when I was junior high (around the Carol Stuart 10 year anniversary). She was Stephen Flemmi’s girlfriend.

She was basically a real life Elvira (from Scarface) / Ginger McKenna (from Casino) that was murdered by Whitey Bulger. She knew too much and was leaving Flemmi and that got her killed. Very inaccurately portrayed by Juno Temple in “Black Mass” (they combined 2 women).

R50 The fact that marijuana has been legalized in Massachusetts and has become a goldmine for white business owners makes me sick.

To think of the decades prior where black people were treated like murderers over being caught with marijuana is insane to think about.

And if you’ve ever walked into those shops, everyone is there. Whites and blacks smoke marijuana at the same rates but only blacks were pretty much the ones who suffered from it criminally.

Chuck and Carol were quite awkward-looking.

Chuck looks so much like this guy I went to high school with. Very smart snd nerdy, but had this weirdly entitled attitude towards girls even though he had never had a girlfriend.

He became a bit fixated on a friend of mine in a “she should be FLATTERED to have my attention” kind of way. I always thought it was very creepy.

My mother lived in suburban Boston at that time. She knew right away that Stuart did it, that he'd shot his wife. It's always the husband.

It was the big water cooler topic at her office. Everyone else believed Stuart's story - when my mother spoke up that he did it, co-workers were horrified, to the point some stopped speaking to her. Boy did they eat crow a few weeks later when the truth came out. My mom brags about her insight to this day.

I liked the female reporter who was interviewed who had questioned Chuck's story.

Luckily with abortions now illegal we'll get 5 or 6 cases like this a week. Some of them are bound to be photogenic

R8 is very likely correct that Matthew shot his brother. I just read the Wiki page about the murder. The ballistics were not consistent with a self-inflicted shot, but the jury ignored it.

It's interesting that Charles went from short order cook at the restaurant where he met Carol to manager of the fur store making $100k per year in 1989. How did that happen?! And yet it wasn't in enough.

Did Matthew shoot Carol too? Or did Chuck?

He started in sales at the fur store and then became general manager. It was a family business, so he wasn’t exactly his own boss. He was saving for his own restaurant.

The brother probably shot him—why (a near miss gone bad or because he realized his idea led big bro was a jerk) is lost to history, because the brother is dead.

Did the husband shoot Carol?

I assume the BPD didn't conduct any gunpowder residue tests on Charles. Would he have known about such a thing back then? Were there police proceduraIs on TV? I hardly watched TV because I was in school.

Did Matthew know Charles was going to kill Carol? Or just set-up a fake robbery?

I'm sure he knew he was going to kill her, why bring a gun at all unless someone is going to die? His family are the scumbag type that I hate. You see them on every dateline not ever admitting their creep relative is a fucking killer.

Chuck shot his wife Carol and then he shot himself.

Matthew did not shoot anyone.

R8, Your entire post is full of misinformation and lies.

Did Matthew Stuart step into the thread?

No I won’t watch shit like this during Christmas.

[QUOTE]Chuck shot his wife Carol and then he shot himself.

Why do you believe this despite the ballistic evidence negating the self-shooting theory? I'd like to hear your alleged empirical evidence and how it stacks up to the case forensics presented by certified criminologists and scientists, please, if you can? TIA.

Chuck would have blamed him and got off the hook if his brother had done it. He could have set his brother us as the scapegoat.

Sorry "he could have set his brother up...." Think about it he had reasonable doubt.

A sociopath who knew he could talk his hoodlum brother into anything.

No he couldn't have sold out his bro, his family would have been pissed, they're all scumbags who stick together. Even if he did sell him out, he'd have to admit his own part in it. He would never have.

My post is correct to the best of my knowledge.

I was in college at the time of the shooting. I was in a class on Huntington Ave and we heard the endless sirens and even helicopters. We didn't know what was happening until I got home and saw it on t.v..

The ballistics clearly show that Charles didn't shoot himself. He definitely shot her.

Please feel free to add something interesting or relevant when you can.

Charles Stuart shot his wife and then shot himself.

End of story.

Why do you not believe ballistic evidence, r77?

Did he actually drive that distance with a gunshot wound?

The 911 call was ridiculous, everything the female reporter said analyzing it was right.

Feel very sad for the grandma of Willie Bennett. She looked so defeated.

The hairdresser was so strange. That was the only person they could dig up to talk about Chuck?

Very well done. I had no clue either how racist Boston was. Horrible.

Is R77 here to give us light and truth? Demanding it NOW!!@

The City of Revere fired his brother Michael from their Fire Department when it was revealed that he knew the truth about the murder early on and remained silent.

Carol’s family buried her with her maiden name.

“actual” Back Bay resident

Actual?

To differentiate between themselves and someone else claiming to reside in the Back Bay, R83

Being a current or former Back Bay resident does not make one more knowledgeable about the Stuart case.

Michael Stuart tried, unsuccessfully, to get his job back, but his sons are Revere firefighters.

I appreciate the back bay person posting because it’s interesting to hear what people who lived in Boston at the time thought about this. Any other Boston DLers want to chime in?

How was the fire department recording the phone call between the Stuart brother and sister? I didn’t catch the reason for that - it said they record all calls? Is that right?

What is Revere like? Working class?

Revere is a beachfront town and was home to a significant Italian-American community followed by a Hispanic community. Recently it appears to be home to a growing Arab-American recent immigrant community. There are nicer parts, among them Point of Pines, but the carny atmosphere of the beach - a state park - doesn’t make it classy.

R87, Like prisons, fire departments and police departments record all calls made on their lines.

Michael had to have known that when speaking to his sister that day.

R82, Chuck is buried in an Everett, MA cemetery.

^With an incorrect date of death.

Seriously he had to kill her.

He couldn’t have just divorced her and gotten alimony since she made more than him.

He was already cheating on her and apparently his girlfriend came to the hospital to see him after Carol died.

What a fucking loser.

The story Matthew told is that he met his brother on the road and Chuck threw the gun and some valuables into Matthew’s car. Matthew claimed he was somehow not able to make out Carol’s body.

So that means Chuck hadn’t just shot Carol, but also himself, when he met Matthew.

Look at how far Chuck drove after supposedly shooting himself. The story is absolute nonsense.

Matthew had to have shot Chuck. No other story makes any sense. It’s also possible that he shot them both, all pre-arranged of course.

R93, The distance Chuck drove was minimal, all in a straight line, very simple.

You obviously are unaware of the Mission Hill district of Boston.

Matthew did not shoot anyone the evening of October 23, 1989.

Carol was shot in the head from behind not front? If Chuck was sitting next to her than who shot her?

R95, Chuck was over 6’ tall and they were sitting in a Toyota.

Not very difficult to reach over and shoot.

[QUOTE]Matthew did not shoot anyone the evening of October 23, 1989.

Despite ballistic evidence to the contrary, that it could not have been a self-inflicted wound.

Chuck was a bit like the Menendez brothers with his "look at me" shopping excursions.

I don't know why more people don't do that R82, Shanann Watts, Nicole Simpson, Colette McDonald, Laci Peterson...if I were the families I would leave their murderer's names off their graves. I wonder if Carol's baby was buried with her.

R87 They were also recording for the pilot episode of Rescue 911, this was on that show, what an opening show! Needless to say, the show got picked up.

R98, Yes, as shown on the headstone @ R82.

Is the person who is denying Chuck was the killer the corrupt Boston cop from the doc?

Wonder why r101 thinks that Chuck is absolved just because he didn’t pull the trigger. He planned and orchestrated the whole thing. He may have shot Carol but it’s very unlikely he shot himself.

If you watch the documentary they show a schematic including where Matthew met Chuck. Then they show where Chuck drove after supposedly giving the gun to Matthew. No way. Not possible.

I did not buy Matthew's story either. He was definitely involved.

Did he die or something?

So wild about the rescue 911 coincidence. That crew must have been rock hard.

Are R102 and R103 posting from the same psychiatric ward?

Well r103 he confessed to being involved. The only question is, how deep? It’s clear that r105 has mental problems and there’s no point in attempting to engage it in a rational way any longer.

To be perfectly honest I think Matthew shot them both. I suspect Chuck arranged to have Matthew “encounter” him in the road and Matthew probably was prepared to say he really needed to talk to Chuck immediately. Chuck drove to where he wanted the shooting to happen, Matthew following. Matthew got out of his car, got in the back seat of Chuck’s car, shot Carol, shot his brother, and left.

This is the scenario that is most logical.

It also explains why Matthew was so wracked with guilt and couldn’t lead a normal life after that.

You stupid idiot, R106.

Anyone care to explain the absence of gunshot residue on Charles' hands or sleeves? Or why ballistics did not support the self-inflicted gunshot wound theory with three eyewitnesses reporting seeing another figure in the back seat of the Stuart's vehicle? The jury chose to reject this evidence. I would like to know why amateur DL sleuths reject an empirical basis and not hold the brother suspect.

“There’s no question in my mind, none whatsoever, that there was a third person on St. Alphonsus Street that night, and it’s either Matthew Stuart or Willie Bennett,” O’Meara said. “There’s absolutely no question in my mind.”

If the lead prosecutor was so sure, why wasn’t Matthew ever charged in the murder?

O’Meara retired a long time ago. In late 2022, O’Meara wasn’t interested in talking to Globe reporters. He said it was better to let sleeping dogs lie. He died a few months later.

Matthew’s attorney, Gertner, said the reason Matthew wasn’t charged was simple: He was innocent. She pointed out that a grand jury tried to prove Matthew was involved in the murder — they interviewed nearly 100 people and pored over the case for years.

“I mean, if there had been a whisper of that evidence, he would have been charged with being an accessory to murder,” Gertner said. “And that was not a charge that they could bring.”

Matthew died of a drug overdose in a homeless shelter in 2011. His accomplice in ditching the gun, Jack McMahon, didn’t respond to numerous requests for comment.

Finally, the Globe reached out to an independent forensic consultant, Lewis Gordon, and shared with him all the police and FBI files on the shooting as well as the autopsy reports and other material. But Gordon couldn’t provide a definitive determination.

“He certainly could have shot himself. He certainly could have been shot by someone else,” Gordon said. “We just don’t have enough information to reach a conclusion one one way or the other.”

With the passage of time, there may be no way to say for sure.“

Why do Lewis Gordon say this? He does not even attempt to lay out any concrete or verifiable evidence

Michelle Caruso in the doc shows the narcissist Chuck was in the 911 call. A psychopath.

And Mike Barnicle tried to defend this shit.

Mike Barnicle fueled the campaign to incriminate Wille Bennett.

R108, have you not read r107 and it’s devastatingly fact-laden rebuttal? Why are you referring to the physical evidence that points to the very likely involvement of a third person at the time of the shooting? It’s already all been explained by the nearly hysterical r108.

^^^ “nearly hysterical r107”

[quote]Charles was probably thrown off the Tobin bridge. The wifes' family was mafia connected.

Why is nobody talking about this bit? This is the really interesting dirt.

Because it’s ludicrous, R115.

First, thank you to those who caught my Mike Barnicle reference.

He's a dick who was my neighbor (briefly) on the Cape. He moved when we wouldn't let him into the golf club. He was also fired from the Boston Globe for plagiarism.

I signed "actual Back Bay resident"because I really do live there and was in the Tower building at MassArt when this happened.

As for Matthew, his lawyer was Nancy Gertner, a very well connected retired judge. She made it all go away for Matt.

R117, Matthew Stuart paid a heavy price for his involvement in his manipulating older brother’s plan, but Matthew did not shoot anyone on that evening.

R58, I couldn’t agree with you more — that reporter was absolutely kick-ass. Edie Falco could play her if there is ever another movie/limited-series filmed.

^^Edie Falco would be perfect for that role!

Who was the female reporter? Does the docu name her. There were a lot of good, tough female reporters in Boston back in the late 80s/early 90s. Good for her.

Matthew took the gun his brother used to shoot his pregnant wife when he passed it across her body and out the passenger side window.

There is no way he didn't see her. He then sat by (as did his family) as the Mission Hill neighborhood was terrorized by BPD.

Stop defending him, he should have gone to prison.

Cocaine is a powerful drug and both brothers were very familiar with it.

R121, Michelle Caruso. Her examination of the 911 call, among other things she offers in the doc, is stellar.

R122,

You may be right, but watching the doc i understood it as Chuck threw the bag out of the car window to Matthew, who then chucked the bag (which contained the gun and the items Check claimed were stolen) into the a river.

The store Chuck had stolen the gun from didn’t report it missing until the day after he died.

R122, Matthew Stuart did serve prison time.

The whole thing was suspicious from the beginning. Why was the pregnant woman shot in the head and the man was only shot in the side? If you were an assailant, you would shoot the man in the head because he's a much bigger threat to you than the pregnant woman.

The idiot cops never thought of this very simple fact.

R126, Chuck wounded himself much more seriously than he intended.

He underwent many hours of surgery and had to be fitted for a colostomy bag, which he was still having to use on the day he killed himself.

It bored me after they found his body.

R127, In fact, Chuck left the colostomy bag in the Braintree, MA hotel room where he had stayed the night before he killed himself because he knew he would no longer be needing it.

Chuck shot Carol in the backseat.

Matthew shot Chuck.

Bullshit, R130.

Why are people soo entitled they can’t admit when they might be wrong?

There is no way Chuck could shoot her in the front seat.

Of course he could have, R132.

He was a big guy with a long reach and they were sitting in a cramped Toyota sedan.

Look how much taller he was than Carol.

[quote] There is no way Chuck could shoot her in the front seat

People make out in front seats but can’t reach them to shoot?

Man, the cop in that docuseries was a slime box.

It was an absolutely huge story at the time.

One thing I don't get is why the friend of Stuart's -- to whom he confessed! -- kept his pie hole shut and didn't get in trouble. McLean?

R118 is obviously sexually obsessed with Matthew. She melts down when anyone suggests her imaginary boyfriend might have been anything other than a tragic pawn in the story.

A story that simply doesn’t add up unless Matthew was more involved than he said.

The Toyota in question was a Cressida--much larger than anything they sell now.

R138, Look how small their Toyota appears in these photos.

Dream on, R137.

Your ignorance is on full display.

[Quote] There were a lot of good, tough female reporters in Boston back in the late 80s/early 90s

They were staunch