Autopsy reveals Maine man strangled, beaten before body left at Mass. hospital
A Scituate man charged with murder in connection with the death of a 27-year-old man was ordered held without bail at his arraignment Tuesday, where a prosecutor said the Portland, Maine, man appeared to have been strangled and beaten.
The body of Declan Perry was found wrapped in blankets tied together with duct tape in a parked car outside South Shore Hospital on the afternoon of Aug. 23. An autopsy revealed Perry had deep hemorrhaging to his chest, back and the back of his head from blunt force trauma and several injuries to his neck consistent with strangulation, said Jennifer Sprague, a Plymouth County prosecutor.
The medical examiner determined Perry's wounds were sustained before he died, Sprague said.
On Saturday, 42-year-old Christopher Caron turned himself in to Scituate Police . Caron was charged with murder in connection with Perry's death, and arraigned on that charge in Hingham District Court on Tuesday morning.
For much of the arraignment, Caron, who wore a grey, long-sleeve t-shirt, looked down at the ground as Sprague laid out the evidence against him.
On Aug. 12, Perry began texting Caron. The pair made plans for Perry to travel from Maine to Massachusetts on Aug. 22 so they could hang out. When Perry arrived, prosecutors say Caron "facilitated the sale" of fentanyl and cocaine to him, warning, "you gotta go easy on this [expletive]."
The pair purchased the drugs in Boston on the afternoon of Aug. 22, then returned to Caron's home in Scituate, where he was living with his mother and grandmother. Hours later, at around 1:30 a.m., Caron searched, "7/11 Narcan" and sent several messages to a female friend, asking her to bring the opioid-reversal drug to his home, Sprague said.
The woman arrived at the home shortly after 3 a.m. on Aug. 23 and went to the basement, where Caron's bedroom is located. There, she saw Perry lying on the floor unconscious. Caron gave Perry three doses of Narcan to his nose, and while Perry did not wake up, the woman noticed his heart was beating and he was breathing, Sprague said.
The woman eventually went to sleep. When she was woken up by Caron around 7 a.m., Perry was dead, Sprague said.
Moving the body
Despite pleas from the woman, Caron refused to call an ambulance, fearing that doing so would upset his mother and grandmother. Instead, prosecutors say Caron tried to move Perry's body, using a detached interior door as a stretcher. Right around the time he woke up the woman, Caron searched, "When you die, how long until you poop and pee yourself?" Sprague said.
But Caron couldn't get Perry's body out of the basement, and instead wrapped the body in blankets and placed it in a large storage bin, Sprague said. The woman helped Caron push the body up the stairs, eventually making it to the main floor of the home.
The woman told police Perry's body never fell out of the bin or hit anything as they pushed it up the stairs. She also said she didn't see any drugs or drug paraphernalia in the bedroom when she was there, Sprague said.
Caron and the woman began moving Perry's body to the car he was eventually found in. As they were doing so, several of Caron's neighbors offered to help, and Caron asked one to get him packing tape. When she returned, Caron wrapped Perry's body, already covered in blankets, in tape, Sprague said.
A pair of other neighbors eventually helped move the body into the car — Caron told them it was a hockey mannequin and made several jokes about it being a real body, Sprague said.
The woman then drove Caron to her home in Weymouth before he drove himself and Perry's body to South Shore Hospital. There, Caron went inside and told the staff there was someone in a car outside who needed medical attention, Sprague said.
By the time medical staff got to Perry's body, he had no pulse and was in rigor mortis.
A search warrant obtained
After leaving the hospital, Caron went to a Cumberland Farms, where he bought a few items while waiting for an Uber. He took the rideshare back to the woman's home and went back to Scituate from there.
After news of the discovery of Perry's body was reported, residents of the Scituate condo complex told police they'd seen a man loading a large, heavy blanket into a black Honda Civic at their neighbor's home earlier in the day on Saturday, the district attorney's office said.
Police then recovered a damaged black storage container from a dumpster near the condo complex, as well as mail in the name of Caron's grandmother, Sprague said.
Eventually, police obtained a search warrant for the Scituate condo. In the basement, they found red-brown stains on the couch and carpet and on the detached interior door. They also found a black belt on the floor, Sprague said.
The medical examiner determined Perry's injuries could not have been self-inflicted — and the only two people with him before he died were Caron and the woman, Sprague said.
'Slow and steady wins the race'
G. Makis Antzoulatos, the public defender appointed to represent Caron, did not contest the prosecution's request that the 42-year-old be held without bail during the arraignment. A bail hearing for Caron was set for Sept. 29.
At a press conference outside the courthouse following the arraignment, Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz praised the work of investigators, who worked across county lines. Weymouth is in Norfolk County, but Scituate is in Plymouth County, and police in both communities worked collaboratively on the case, he said.
"We owe [it] to the victims of these cases to make sure that we get it right. So that's what we're going to do. Slow and steady wins the race, it always does, and that's what we're going to continue to do," he said.
Cruz would not discuss how Caron and Perry knew each other, but described them as acquaintances. He also would not address whether prosecutors have a theory of how Perry died.
It's not clear whether Perry was administered Narcan before or after he sustained the fatal injuries — Cruz said he would wait for the medical examiner's office to complete its full report before giving out details.
"Every homicide case that occurs in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it's between the medical examiner and the district attorney," he said. "Working together is really what gets us our results."
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