UPDATE: Arrested in Roxbury.
AlertNewEngland reports a woman abducted from a residential mental-health facility after a bloody attack there early this afternooon was found dead in a church parking lot in Lynn. But the car possibly used by her alleged killer - a resident at the facility - was found on Dorchester Avenue in Ashmont, he reports.
At a press conference tonight, Revere Police and Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley said the man, Deshawn James Chappell, 27, of Chelsea, could be in Boston.
Shortly before noon, Revere police and fire crews responded to the North Suffolk Mental Health Association at 110 Ocean Ave. on a report of a fire. They found both fire and a large amount of blood. Not long after, they found Stephanie Moulton's body in the parking lot of a church in Lynn.
Authorities say anybody who spots Chappell should call police. Earlier today, Boston Police were told to be on the lookout for man in clothes covered with blood.
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Comments
I'm 99% sure this was a residence...
By eeka
Fri, 01/21/2011 - 9:18am
"Facility" as is being reported everywhere is a bit misleading; from what I'm hearing around the healthcare grapevine, I'm almost certain this was a guy with supported housing, as in, this was a house or apartment where he lives as long as he wants (um, except probably not any more...) and has staff help with paying bills or filling scripts or whatever it is that he needs help with. This wasn't like an escape from a locked hospital-type setting.
Which makes it that much more frightening.
By pilgrimm
Fri, 01/21/2011 - 12:01pm
But nobody seems to notice or care when it comes time to cut mental health services.
Does it, though?
By eeka
Fri, 01/21/2011 - 12:23pm
If someone was in a locked hospital unit (tons of staff, staff readily able to use physical and chemical restraints, everything remotely resembling a weapon locked up) and killed someone, then that would suggest something along the lines of either that the human race has evolved into producing some sort of superhuman demonic person who couldn't be stopped, or the system was stretched so thin that one person was watching the whole unit and they couldn't afford sedatives or locks for the closet.*
In this instance, yes, it sucks for everyone involved, and there's too much killing and not enough services in place, but this guy is really no different sociologically from all the other individuals who have mental health problems and who kill people -- but don't have the specific sort of services in place that make it into the news that the person was "one of those mentally ill people." This guy just happened to live in a house that is owned/rented in the name of a supported housing agency. Other people who've killed people had similar supports in place, but they were using an agency with a different service model where their lease was in their own name or they lived with relatives or whatever, so there was no non-confidential record that the person had supported housing services, and they just became murder number whatevertyfive of the year.
(*Yes, I know oversights have happened and people have very infrequently killed others or self in secure facilities. I was illustrating that for it to happen in a properly run facility, this would mean there were serious issues.)
Well, that never even occurred to me but
By pilgrimm
Fri, 01/21/2011 - 3:09pm
I suppose a superhuman demonic person would be more frightening.
And one unit stretched too thin, doesn’t scare me as much as an entire system stretched too thin. Over the past ten years and especially since the recession, the number of hospital beds have decreased to the point were someone needs to be a very obvious threat to themselves or others before placement in a hospital is even considered. Not only that, but program’s have closed or reduced the number of staff, case managers and mental health workers laid off and everybody’s caseloads and responsibilities increased.
I don’t know the details of this particular case, but if it became more likely because a lack of services.
I had heard
By FrancescaFordiani
Fri, 01/21/2011 - 4:25pm
I had heard that this was a staffed group home -- which, in terms of level of care, is obviously much less structured than a locked unit, but much more structured than folks living in independent supported housing. The agency I work for certainly has discussions -- and had one today -- about the staffing levels we would all like to have in group homes vs. the staffing levels that we can get fundng for.
Hmm, not sure how Field's
By anon
Sat, 01/22/2011 - 2:55pm
Hmm, not sure how Field's Corner morphed into Ashmont? "A car matching that description was found parked near the Ashmont MBTA station in Dorchester yesterday afternoon." The suspect's car was actually left in the parking lot of Tedeschi's at the corner of Gibson St and Dot Ave (a block from the Boston Police Area C11 station) - my husband saw the incident there. The actual location is a mile north of Ashmont.