Murder Suspect Kills Himself

BOSTON--Charles Stuart, nationally known as the suburban victim of a shooting that also killed his pregnant wife as they left an inner-city childbirth class, killed himself yesterday after learning he was a suspect in the case.

Stuart, whose newborn son died 17 days after the Oct. 23 shooting, flung himself from the 300-foot high Tobin Bridge into Boston Harbor hours after what prosecutors said was a dramatic disclosure that swung the focus of the investigation to Stuart.

"Basically, it's fair to say, he could not handle the allegations or statements made about him," Suffolk County Prosecutor Newman Flanagan said, referring to a note found in Stuart's car at the bridge.

Flanagan said Stuart's story that he and his wife were the victims of a Black assailant who had entered the couple's car "is not true."

He confirmed that his office was contacted Wednesday by an attorney representing one of Stuart's two brothers to say the brother had information on the case. They spoke with the brother and then obtained statements from other relatives and close friends.

He said the investigation turned up evidence that included the engagement ring Stuart had given his wife, Carol.

"After careful review of this new evidence, I instructed Boston police homicide detectives to arrest Charles Stuart for the murder," he said.

A search of the Pines River in Stuart's hometown of Revere yesterday yielded corroborating evidence against Stuart, including a Gucci bag, wallet, makeup and other personal belongings of Carol Stuart, Flanagan said.

Throughout Boston and its suburbs, residents were stunned and confused by the news.

"I would say the whole town is shocked. They were portrayed as a model couple," said Wally Arsenault, a restaurant manager in Reading, a suburb 15 miles north of Boston where the Stuarts lived.

"At this point I still don't know what to believe. I still wonder what is the truth," said John Vajdic, who lives across the street from the Stuarts' slate-blue, split-entry home, which still had a holiday wreath on the door yesterday.

No arrest warrant had been issued prior to Stuart's disappearance, and attempts by police to find him early yesterday were unsuccessful. But, Flanagan said, "I would assume he could very well have been aware of it [having become a suspect]."

He said the case was still active.

The attack on the suburban couple, who had been married four years, drew cries of outrage about city violence from around the country. In the hoopla it stirred, numerous media outlets named a city resident with a long record, William Bennett, as a suspect. He had never been charged, and the prosecutor cleared his name yesterday.

Rumors' of Stuart's possible involvement had circulated in the Boston area for weeks. The speculation included talk that he and his wife had never been in a birthing class and that there was a large insurance policy on Mrs. Stuart. Prosecutors said yesterday they had no evidence of either rumor being true.

Police said Stuart's car was found about 7 a.m. on the lower level of the Tobin Bridge. A handwritten note of four or five sentences and Stuart's license were found in the car. Police divers found the body about six hours later, and drowning was given as the official cause of death.

As a stunned city and suburbs turned to radios and television for details of the case, the father of Stuart's wife, Giusto DiMaiti, was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital with an undisclosed ailment. He was treated and released.

Flanagan said Stuart, a 29-year-old fur sales agent, became a suspect Wednesday after Boston police and investigators from his office interrogated several people late into the night. He said that around midnight the officers searched "some waters" in Revere for "physical evidence." He would not say what area was searched but that it was not the home there of Stuart's parents.

Edward Marchand, chief of police in Reading, said Stuart's house had been watched by police overnight after Boston police informed him that Stuart was a suspect in his wife's death, but Stuart never returned home.

Marchand said he believed Stuart was aware his house was being watched.

Marchand would not say why Stuart had become a suspect, but he said "there's a lot more to the story."

The Stuart case gained national attention after police released a tape recording of Stuart's anguished pleas for help on the telephone in Carol Stuart's car. He had suffered a stomach wound and his 30-year-old wife, an attorney, lay dying.

He left the hospital to be at his son's side at his death. And he wrote a statement for his wife's funeral in which he said: "...for us to truly believe, we must know that [God's] will was done and that there was some right in this meanest of acts. In our souls, we must forgive this sinner because he would too."

Shortly before Christmas, Stuart viewed a lineup containing an alleged suspect, and while officials refused to say publicly whether an identification was made, many media outlets said Stuart had made firm indications that Bennett, who appeared in the lineup, could be the assailant.

The case stirred such emotions that the funeral was attended by the governor, mayors and other politicians.

Father Jack Bennett, a priest in the Mission Hill neighborhood where the shootings took place, said that the case was disturbing to minorities because "it seemed like total blame was placed on the Blacks and the Hispanics, and that upset us."

In the early hours of news reports of the dramatic developments yesterday, some still refused to believe Stuart could have had anything to do with the shootings.

One neighbor of the Stuart's Reading home wailed that, if he killed himself, he "just wanted to be with them [his dead wife and child]."