MA MA - Carol DiMaiti Stuart, murdered by husband Charles Stuart who claimed a Black man had carjacked their car, Boston, 23 October 1989

[imstilla.grandma]

Murder in Boston: Roots, Rage & Reckoning:

Monday night, HBO aired the first of three installments in its documentary series Murder in Boston: Roots, Rage & Reckoning. Directed by Jason Hehir (who made The Last Dance), it's about the October 1989 murder of Carol Stuart. The murder was originally reported by her husband, Charles, as a carjacking by a Black assailant in which they had both been shot. She died, as did the baby she was carrying. By January, Charles' brother confessed that he had assisted Charles in murdering his wife and that Charles' own injury was essentially a misdirect; the carjacker never existed. In the intervening months, a manhunt had resulted in the police stopping, searching and harassing large numbers of Black men in Boston, one of whom they even arrested. Charles Stuart identified him as the — as it turns out — fictional murderer, then took his own life shortly after his brother gave him up to the police.

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/09/1218242535/murder-in-boston-is-what-a-docuseries-should-look-like

 

[DFWNF]

wow, I remember this tragic case as if it were yesterday, thanks for posting Grandma

 

[imstilla.grandma]

wow, I remember this tragic case as if it were yesterday, thanks for posting Grandma

Me too, memories flood my mind watching the tv. I was surprised there wasn’t a dedicated thread to this twisted crime. Poor Carol.

 

[weepingangel]

Dbm

 

[ifindedout]

Murder of Carol Stuart - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[weepingangel]

I’ve been waiting to watch this and wasn’t sure when it started. The Boston Globe has a recent series of articles as well (paywalled but I was able to access most of it by using archive

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Two Black men were wrongly named as suspects, and Stuart ended up killing himself after his brother Matthew told police “Chuck” had planned his wife’s murder to collect insurance money. The Stuart murder left the Mission Hill community shaken even decades later, and with questions about what had happened and why.

“After Chuck realized his brother had turned him in, he drove to the top of the Tobin Bridge and jumped, and it left a lot of questions behind and a lot of soul-searching,” said Boston Globe investigative reporter Elizabeth Koh during a talk, “Race, Police, and the Media in America,” on Tuesday evening at the Harvard Kennedy School. “A lot of those questions never really had been answered and the trauma that has been left behind, especially in Mission Hill, had never really been addressed.”

In examining old clips and videos, Globe reporters found the initial stories were sympathetic to the Stuart couple, and the few stories about the Mission Hill community were filled with anti-Black biases that were commonplace in the late 1980s.

“When the team started going out and knocking on people’s doors, people said, ‘I’ve been waiting to tell the story for 34 years,’” McCarthy said.

Could troubling police, media response to Charles Stuart murder happen again? — Harvard Gazette

Reporters who revisited 35-year-old case that reignited racial tensions in Boston say Black community sees no reason why it couldn’t.

news.harvard.edu

 

[tezi]

Didn't Chuck have a younger girlfriend too? She worked at the fur place where he worked, I believe. He was a nasty piece of work. His brother did some time in jail/prison I believe, for his part in the crime.

 

[MeadowMuffin]

Didn't Chuck have a younger girlfriend too? She worked at the fur place where he worked, I believe. He was a nasty piece of work. His brother did some time in jail/prison I believe, for his part in the crime.

Yes. I followed this case at the time it occurred. So very sad. That same brother died of an OD IIRC. The act of murder causes so many ripples if heartache for so many people.