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- <text id=91TT2218>
- <title>
- Oct. 07, 1991: American Notes:Crime
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Oct. 07, 1991 Defusing the Nuclear Threat
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 27
- American Notes
- CRIME
- Fraternal Aid
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Brotherly love can make a man do strange things. On the
- night of Oct. 23, 1989, Matthew Stuart pulled his car alongside
- a blue Toyota parked in a predominantly black Boston
- neighborhood. The driver of the Toyota, Matthew's brother
- Charles, handed him a purse through the window. Accompanied by
- his friend John McMahon, Matthew ditched the purse in the Pines
- River. It contained the engagement ring of Carol Stuart--as
- well as the .38 revolver that Charles had just used to kill his
- pregnant wife and then wound himself.
- </p>
- <p> The murder transfixed the nation and aggravated Boston's
- racial tensions after Charles Stuart, posing as a mugging
- victim, called police from his car phone and sent them on a
- manhunt that led to the arrest of a black suspect. Ten weeks
- later, Matthew came forward and told authorities he had helped
- dispose of the purse. Next day, Charles committed suicide after
- reportedly telling his lawyer that he had murdered his wife to
- get her life insurance. Last week a grand jury indicted Matthew
- and his accomplice McMahon on nine counts ranging from
- compounding a felony to unlawfully carrying a firearm. McMahon
- was also charged with accessory to murder after the fact--a
- charge from which Matthew, as the killer's brother, is exempt
- under Massachusetts law.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-