Court upholds West Roxbury man's conviction for shooting his father to death in their home

The Massachusetts Appeals Court today rejected arguments that Boston Police officers doing a well being check on a man who never missed work should not have entered his house without a warrant, and so upheld the second-degree murder conviction of his son - whom officers found in the house along with his dead father.

But in the smallest of victories for Mark Regan Jr. convicted of second-degree murder for his 66-year-old father's 2014 death, the court did overturn his convictions for illegal gun and ammunition possession because prosecutors did not specifically prove he did not have a firearms license - a requirement that only came into effect after a 2022 Supreme Court ruling. That part of the appeals-court ruling, however, does not affect Regan's life sentence.

In his appeal, Regan's attorney argued that any evidence BPD officers found after they entered his and his father's Perham Street home should have been tossed as the fruits of an unconstitutional search, because they didn't have a warrant. The appeals court, however, ruled that the officers complied with an "emergency aid" carve out for the Fourth Amendment, because they had a legitimate concern something had happened to Mark Regan Sr. when they climbed up a ladder to enter a second-floor window of the house on March 14, 2014.

The victim worked at FedEx in Needham and never missed work or failed to answer his cell phone. After he did not arrive for his morning shift on March 12, 2014, coworkers called him repeatedly, but there was no answer. After the victim failed to arrive for his afternoon shift, his supervisor called 911. He informed the police that the victim was sixty-six years old and his absence was "out of character," expressed concern that the victim might be ill although he was not aware of specific medical problems, and asked them to perform a wellness check.

On the morning of March 14, Boston police Officer Stephen Parenteau received a radio call asking him to conduct a wellness check at the victim's home after an off-duty officer, whose brother was another of the victim's colleagues, raised concerns about his absence and unspecified medical issues. Two other police officers were outside the victim's house when Parenteau arrived. One neighbor told the officers that he had not seen the victim in a couple of days. Another neighbor reported that over the past few nights she had not seen lights or other signs of activity in the house. The officers knocked and rang the doorbell but received no answer. Inspecting the perimeter of the house, they did not see any unlocked or damaged doors, but there was a pile of mail between the storm and main front doors. The victim's car was parked in front of the house and covered with snow and ice from a storm that had ended the morning before.

The victim's brother arrived around 8:30 A.M. The brother was concerned about the victim's health, but did not recall whether he discussed those concerns with the officers outside the house. The brother urged the officers to enter the home, but he did not have a key. The officers waited until their patrol supervisor authorized them to enter, and then used a ladder on the side of the house to enter through an unlocked second-floor window. They saw the victim's body in the hall, partially wrapped in a bed sheet, with bloodstains on his body and the floor. After they called for emergency medical services, the defendant appeared. Wearing a T-shirt and underwear, he identified himself as the homeowner's son and said he had been in the attic because he was frightened. The officers took the defendant to police headquarters and sealed the scene until a search warrant was approved.

At trial, evidence was presented that only two of the four bedrooms appeared to be lived in, and in one of those bedrooms the police found live .22 caliber cartridges, spent .38 caliber cartridge casings, and papers showing the defendant's name. They also found a .38 caliber Charter Arms revolver hidden in the insulation under the floorboards of the attic. A ballistics expert testified that a bullet fired from the revolver matched the projectiles recovered from the victim's body. A police criminologist testified that three latent fingerprints were found on the revolver and two of them matched the defendant's fingerprints.

Considering these facts in their totality, we conclude that it was objectively reasonable for officers to believe that the victim was in his home and faced an immediate and serious risk to his health and safety.

And once inside the house, police acted legally and "responsibly," the court continued: They asked the son to get dress and accompany them to the homicide unit and then "froze" the house until they could obtain a warrant for a more detailed search.

The court did agree with Regan's attorney that the forensics expert may have misspoke at one point and appeared to be saying that forensics testing of fingerprints is infallible, when it is not. But the totality of his testimony and the judge's handling of his answers meant that he did not misguide the jury and "they did not result in a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice."