Fugitive found in Carolinas
Published on April 26th, 2006
RALEIGH, NC - North Carolina authorities captured a 34-year-old fugitive suspected of beating a 27-year-old Manchester, N.H. woman unrecognizable at a Fallon Road parking lot last July.
According to Middlesex District Attorney spokeswoman Emily LaGrassa, former Dorchester resident Joseph Simpson was arrested by Raleigh, North Carolina Police last Friday after authorities received a tip about the 34-year-old's whereabouts.
Simpson, who had eluded investigators since he was allowed to walk out of a Suffolk County court house last October after a judge dismissed charges against the 34-year-old in an unrelated case, was known by authorities to have acquaintances in North Carolina and several N.H. communities.
"We got a tip that he was staying with a relative in North Carolina and the police went and found him there. We're still working on the arrangements to bring him back," LaGrassa remarked.
"That's up to the sheriff's office," the spokeswoman responded, when asked where the 34-year-old would be held upon his return to Massachusetts. "If he arrives during the night, he would be brought to the Stoneham Police Station overnight. He will be brought to Middlesex Superior Court to be arraigned."
As local authorities searched for the 34-year-old, a Middlesex Grand Jury indicted the man last December for his alleged role in a vicious attack upon the 27-year-old Manchester, N.H. woman at the A.W. Chesterson Company on Fallon Road last July 22.
The former Dorchester resident is charged with armed assault with intent to murder and larceny of a motor vehicle.
Accused of beating the N.H. woman so severely that even grizzled Stoneham Police veterans found themselves shocked by the gruesome scene, Simpson allegedly left the 27-year-old woman for dead after dragging her into a wooded area and pummeling her with his fists and a rock.
Discovered by a security guard at approximately 4:30 a.m. on last July 22, the bloodied victim reportedly crawled from the nearby woods and climbed into a parked motor vehicle.
She then managed to draw attention to herself by hunching her body over the steering wheel, setting off the car's horn, say police.
"It was a pretty gruesome scene - so much that we couldn't tell at first if the victim was a man or a woman," recalled Stoneham Police Det. Bob McKinnon shortly after the incident last summer. "Both of her eyes were swollen shut and she had cuts all over her body. He really did a number on her."
"I think this was the first time a lot of the people who reported to the scene had seen anything so vicious," the Detective added.
According to the D.A.'s office and Stoneham Police, Simpson and the victim, whose exact relationship to each other wasn't specified, were traveling home along I-93 after meeting with several friends in N.H. when their vehicle started to run out of gas.
Managing to pull the car over near the Fallon Road company before it came to a halt, the 26-year-old victim was then allegedly dragged into the woods by Simpson, who subsequently beat his acquaintance with his fists and a rock, say police.
Then purportedly leaving the victim for dead, Simpson is accused of stealing a Ryder Truck from a nearby property and fleeing the area. Boston Police arrested Simpson later that day on a default warrant after he was pulled over for speeding in the stolen vehicle.
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