Thursday News Update from DA’s Office
Two Updates today from Essex County District Attorney Jon Blodgett’s Office
Tuesday Lynn Shootings
The investigation into the multiple homicides and suicide in Lynn is ongoing. At this time, investigators believe that a 31-year-old woman shot her 66-year-old father and her 34-year-old brother-in-law at 98 Rockaway Street.
She then shot and killed a 56-year-old man in his vehicle outside of 44 Laighton Street. This man was her brother-in-law’s father.
She then took her own life in her vehicle in the parking lot at Stop & Shop on Washington Street.
We are still making family notifications and interviewing witnesses, which requires a foreign language translator. Therefore we cannot release any additional information at this time.
SUSPECT INDICTED IN 1986 MURDER
This morning, an Essex County Grand Jury indicted John Carey (DOB: 9/3/1959) for the murder of a 20-year-old North Andover woman in June 1986, Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett announced.
On Saturday, June 29, 1986, Claire Gravel, a student at Salem State College, went to Major Magleashes’ Pub on Washington Street in Salem with members of her softball team. She was last seen alive between 1:30 and 1:45 a.m. Sunday morning being dropped off at her apartment on Loring Avenue in Salem. Three workmen discovered her body in the woods on the northbound side of Route 128 in Beverly on the afternoon of June 30th. The medical examiner determined that she had been strangled to death.
“For 36 years, Claire Gravel’s family and friends have had nothing but questions about her death,” DA Blodgett said. “Today, we are able to give them some of the answers.”
Over the years, investigators have interviewed dozens of witnesses and persons-of-interest, and followed through on every lead and tip they received. In 2012, a new lead developed based on surviving physical evidence undergoing modern forensic testing. Since then, the efforts of Assistant District Attorneys and State Police Detectives assigned to the Essex DA’s Office specializing in cold cases, as well as the initial investigation by Beverly, Salem and State Police at the time of the murder, have led to this indictment.
Mr. Carey, 63, is currently incarcerated at MCI Concord for a 2008 conviction. He is presumed innocent until proven guilty on the new charges.
