Small Town Murder

March 16, 2008.
Man fatally stabs Grandmother in Weston, MA.

(NECN: Brad Puffer, Waltham, Mass.) - A murder has shocked people in an affluent Boston suburb. A Boston man is charged with stabbing his grandmother to death in her home in Weston, Massachusetts. 22-year-old James Clark appeared in Waltham District Court today to face murder charges.
Clark is now charged in the murder of his 80-year-old grandmother, Eleanor Clark. Police say Clark stabbed his grandmother inside her Weston, Massachusetts home Sunday evening. It is the first homicide in Weston in more than 3 decades.
"There was an altercation there which resulted in James Clark stabbing his grandmother to death," says Gerry Leone, Middlesex DA.
Clark visited his grandmother’s house Sunday afternoon. He later showed up at a neighbors house with blood on his hands.
"The trail of blood led to the next door neighbor’s home. The neighbors learned that the trail of blood was from an injury to James McGuire Clark’s hand. He went to his neighbors house and said he had suffered the injury in a home accident.
District Attorney Gerry Leone says after being treated at a hospital, he showed up at a friend’s house, and apparently told them what happened.
"After telling his friends what happened, they called 911 to a report that a crime had been committed."
Clark appeared in Waltham district court Monday with a Shakespeare and Co. T-shirt and a bandage on his right hand. Prosecutors say Clark is a citizen of the UK but has been living in the US since he was two years old, most recently at a halfway house in Boston. His mother recently moved back to England.

What's going on in my little town? First, torrid and steamy stories of extra-curricular sexcapades with the service tech and now this? Let's just say the "joint is jumping". Talk of the first murder in 33 years sent this small community abuzz yesterday, with TV news trucks sprinkled all over town.

The Daily Dandy roving reporter spoke to neighbors who stated that James M. Clark, a drifter from Dorchester, was well known in the neighborhood and "seemed like a nice kid".

"I drove bye the house last night around 10pm and saw lights on in the house, " the neighbor said. "I thought that was a little late, you know, unusual for her, but I dismissed it."

Apparently, James Clark stabbed his grandmother to death after an altercation with her in the kitchen of her home. Police found the bloodied body of Eleanor Clark under the kitchen table in the breakfast nook with multiple stab wounds on her neck and face; her throat had been slashed. A bloody folding knife was found on the kitchen table and police then followed a trail of blood to the next-door neighbor's house. James Clark told the neighbor he had cut his hand slicing fruit in the kitchen, and the neighbor then drove him to the hospital for treatment. Clark then took a cab to a friends house in Newton, where he apparently confessed to the murder and a 911 call was made to police by his friends.

Clark told police he was "sorry for making them look at his grandmother like that and then requested that police give him a gun so he could shoot himself." Clark is in police custody and on suicide watch.

It's unsettling to think that less that 3 miles away from where my children sleep, a horrific crime like this took place. The Daily Dandy roving reporter will keep you updated on the latest on the story.