HLS Panel Looks Back at Stuart Murder

The Carol Stuart murder case may have been closed almost 10 years ago, but tempers still flare in Boston over the police investigation and media coverage that followed that crime.

Those tempers came out again at a panel discussion last night at Harvard Law School (HLS). "Revisiting the Stuart Case," was hosted by Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree Jr.

On Oct. 23, 1989, Charles Stuart, who was white, claimed that a black man had shot him and his pregnant wife. After an extensive manhunt, William "Willie" Bennett, who is black, was arrested.

Three months after the shooting, Charles Stuart's brother produced evidence that Stuart had shot himself and his wife as part of a scheme to collect insurance money. Soon afterward, Charles Stuart committed suicide.

The case inflamed racial tensions in Boston, as the media and police were accused of being too easily duped by Stuart's story.

About 100 people met in the Ames Courtroom last night to hear the panel, which included the former and current Boston police commissioners and representatives from print, radio and television media.

The case would have been investigated by the police very differently if the victim had been a black woman and the suspect a white man, said panelist and Boston Globe Managing Editor Gregory Moore.

But Moore said that the media, and especially the Globe's own staff, went too far toward presuming Bennett's guilt.

Law enforcement officials said the media exacerbated their problems by misinforming the public.

"I think we did a bad job," said William Celester, former Commander of Boston Police Area B, where the shooting occurred.

But, Celester said, "the media drove the story" and engaged in "knowing misinformation." The police had a generally good relationship with the black community that was ignored by the media, he said.

The media representatives said today's reporters are more sensitive about racial issues and would be more critical about Stuart's story if it happened today.

But audience members and most of the panelists raised concerns that the same kind of tragedy could occur again.

"The Stuart case is alive and well because things have not changed that much," said Leonard C. Alkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Charlene Morrisseau, a second-year law student and president of the Harvard Black Law Students Association, said the media still reports on shootings in black schools as an "inner-city" problem while shootings in white schools are the nation's problem.

"I wonder if anyone can explain to me exactly what is it that has changed in your newsrooms or your polices stations," Morisseau said. "By focussing on the nature of the [Stuart] crime you're ignoring the responses of the media in general."

The panel was co-sponsored by the Boston Association of Black Journalists, the HLS Saturday School Program and the HLS Criminal Justice Institute.