A suspect was arrested Monday night in the weekend killings of a Newton, Massachusetts, husband and wife celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and the woman’s 97-year-old mother, authorities said.
Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said police took Christopher Ferguson into custody and charged him with killing 73-year-old Gilda “Jill” D’Amore after an autopsy revealed her death was a homicide. Ferguson also was charged with two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, and burglary.
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Additional charges are expected in the death of 74-year-old Bruno D’Amore and his mother-in-law, Lucia Arpino, after those autopsies are completed.
Ferguson pleaded not guilty in court Tuesday and was held without bail.
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The victims and suspect all live in Newton but Ryan said it appeared there was no connection between them.
Here's a closer look at the series of events that led investigators to Ferguson, as outlined by Ryan on Monday night:
- At about 10:14 a.m. Sunday morning, Newton police received a call after a close friend and neighbor of the victims had entered the house on Broadway in Newton. She was concerned because the couple was scheduled to renew their wedding vows on the occasion of their 50th anniversary. When they did not arrive for the service the friend went back to the house to see what was delaying them.
- When she entered the house, the friend found the three residents suffering from severe injuries and called 911. The individuals were pronounced dead at the house at 10:20 a.m.
- All three victims suffered from apparent knife injuries and blunt force trauma. Jill D'Amore suffered over 30 stab and blunt force trauma injuries, primarily to the upper part of her body and head.
- There were obvious signs of struggle in one of the bedrooms of the home, including broken furniture and a crystal paperweight covered in blood. A knife with red-brown stains was found in the kitchen.
- Police also discovered evidence of a forced entry in the basement. One of the windows was open and a number of the other windows had the screens pried off and removed. The door of the garage, which was in the back part of the house, was also open, and close to that door was one of the screens that had been torn from a basement window.
- Forensic specialists processed the floor outside of the bedroom where the struggle had taken place. The surface of that floor was a ceramic tile. They processed that floor with Leukocrystal Violet, a chemical referred to as LCV that can be used to identify bloodstains that are not visible.
- Having done that, investigators were able to find bloody bare footprints on that tile hallway floor. Like fingerprints, the skin of people's feet is unique and leaves an impression that can be compared. Investigators were able to gather a number of those footprints.
- They also observed blood stains, passive droplets consistent with blood dripping from an object near those footprints, and were also able to recover what they hope will be a number of fingerprints that can be matched from the screens and windows that were removed.
- Police immediately began a canvas for video in the area. They were able to obtain a video from the area of 455 Albemarle Road, which is about 4/10 of a mile from the house on Broadway and about 100 yards from what investigators believe to be Ferguson's home on Washington Street. The video shows that at about 5:20 a.m. Sunday, a male with no shirt and no shoes was walking with what appeared to be a staggering gate.
- Several officers, when shown that video, were able to identify the individual depicted in the video as Ferguson, who was known to them.
- Late Monday afternoon, the lab was able to match one of the footprints taken from the tile hallway floor in the Broadway home to an impression taken from Ferguson. That is what led to obtaining the warrant for his arrest.
Ryan said the above details represent only "a short summary of what has really been tireless work" by Newton police, state police and members of the district attorney's office.
"I think none of us who were here yesterday who heard about the family gathering at the church, waiting to celebrate a very joyous occasion, having beloved family members not show up, then learning about the deaths, did not have a sense of the great tragedy and loss that occurred," she said. "And this kind of work, this kind of really dogged gathering of evidence and processing in this short a period of time in an attempt both to determine what happened to these family members and also to restore a sense of safety to the members of the community -- who yesterday we could not make that same assurance to -- has led to the charges this afternoon."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
