The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

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Police chiefs recall tales from “CSI Lincoln”

Lincoln is a safe, quiet town most of the time, but not always. In a packed Bemis Hall in late January, four former and current Lincoln Police Chiefs shared anecdotes about some of the more interesting—and tragic—situations they’ve encountered over the years.

Jim Arena, who was chief from 1976 to 1995, recalled an incident in the early 1980s when high-tech executives and Lincoln residents An Wang and Ken Olsen received threatening letters demanding money, and some time later, there was an explosion from a device on a utility pole that the threatener had planted “to show he meant business,” Arena said. The suspect turned out to be a soldier stationed at Fort Devens.

Before coming to Lincoln, Arena was police chief in Edgartown, Mass., at the time of the Ted Kennedy Chappaquiddick incident in 1969 (“we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he quipped).

Al Bowles, who succeeded Arena and served as chief from 1995 to 2003, described the time a flat-bed trailer got stuck on the hump of the railroad crossing on Tower Road. He was able to disconnect the cab, but an oncoming train hit the trailer, though another one coming from the opposite direction managed to stop. (The crossing now has a warning for low-bed trailers.)

A more serious incident took place in 1961, when police discovered a murder/suicide in a cottage on Lincoln Road. According to a July 3, 1961 article in the Boston Globe, Agnes Whitlock, who had been under psychiatric care, shot her 12-year-old son as he slept and then turned the gun on herself. The bodies “were in a hot house for a significant amount of time,” Bowles said. About 40 years later, the new owner of the house (which has since been demolished) was also found dead inside, he added.

Bowles also recalled the “great Lincoln drug bust” in the early 1980s when police served warrants to arrest tenants living in the Beaver Pond Road home of the d’Autremont family. “There was a significant amount of illegal whatever in the house,” including $20,000 in cash, several pounds of heroin and cocaine and sawed-off shotguns, Bowles said. The renter turned out to be hiding between floor joists in the basement, “and the only thing that gave him up was his bladder,” he said. The suspect later skipped bail and went back to his native Peru.

One of Lincoln’s biggest mysteries is what happened to Joan Risch, who disappeared in 1961 form her Bedford Road home and was never found. Her husband came home to find the telephone ripped out and blood on the floor, but no one knows her fate; it was later discovered that she had borrowed several library books about murders and disappearances. Then-Police Chief Leo Algeo “said it would always be a stone around his neck,” recalled Mooney, who was on the Lincoln police force at the time.

Lincoln police were also involved in the investigation into the 1985 disappearance of 9-year-old Sarah Pryor of Wayland (a skull fragment matching her DNA was later found), and the stabbing death in a Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School bathroom of Sudbury student James Alenson by fellow student John Odgren in 2007. Odgren, a special-needs student from Princeton, Mass., pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but was convicted and sentenced in 2010 to life without the possibility of parole.

Other deaths that Lincoln police have investigated:

  • Robert McDonald, a Chelsea resident whose body was found in 1998 in Minute Man National Historical Park in Lincoln, had been stabbed more than 80 times. Two Newton men who had been drinking earlier with the victim were later arrested and convicted in the murder case.
  • A hiker came across the partially decomposed body of a woman off Baker Bridge Road. The victim, who had worked at the Naked i Cabaret (a strip club in Boston’s infamous Combat Zone) had been murdered, Bowles said.
  • A suicide victim found in the woods off Route 117 was unidentified for many years until his fingerprints were finally matched to those of a man who had been arrested at a Vietnam protest in California.
  • Steven Rakes was found dead on the side of the road in Mill Street in 2013. He was an alleged extortion victim of mobster Whitey Bulger and had attended Bulger’s murder trial on the day of his death. Police charged Sudbury resident William Camuti (who allegedly owed Rakes money) with putting poison in Rakes’s iced coffee, then driving around until Rakes died and dumping the body in Lincoln. Camuti is set to go on trial soon.

Arena recalled two traffic stops in Lincoln that turned out to be anything but routine. In 1991, a car flagged for speeding wouldn’t stop; police chased it to the corner of Sandy Pond and Baker Bridge Roads, where it crashed. The driver, who had a knife in the car, had murdered his mother in Florida and was driving to Maine when he passed through town. In 1996, police pulled over a van late at night and saw a sawed-off shotgun under the seat; the driver was later convicted of a double homicide in Boston using that gun, Arena said.

Then there are the less serious but equally memorable calls, such as the time when the elderly priest at St. Joseph’s Church called police to say he had fallen and couldn’t get up. Police broke down the door of the church and rectory but couldn’t find him—because it turned out he was actually at the home of a family member in Bedford. Another time, a woman called police in the middle of the night saying a burglar was rattling her back door; it turned out a horse had escaped and was doing the rattling.

One day, a woman whose house had been broken into came into the police station with an envelope she said might be related to the burglary. “I had to keep a very straight face when I opened the envelope and there was a picture of the lady, shall we say, al fresco. I told her I would certainly keep it just in case,” Arena said. “All I can say is, she would never be a candidate for Playboy.”

He kept his word about hanging on to the photo, though. Mooney said he found it in the same desk when he himself was cleaning it out for his own retirement years later.

‘Ghost bike’ removal stirs debate

A "ghost bike" in England. (click image to enlarge). Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

A “ghost bike” in England (click image to enlarge). Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

The swift removal of a “ghost bike” in memory of a bicyclist killed in an accident on Virginia Road came as a surprise to some residents as well as the man who put it there. For public safety reasons, Lincoln police removed the ghost bike that had been attached to a stop sign near the spot where Westford bicyclist Mark Himelfarb died on August 17—though they will briefly permit another ghost bike at a different location in September.

“Ghost bikes” are old bicycles that are stripped down, spray-painted white, and locked to a sign or parking meter close to the site of a fatal bike accident. The bikes are usually installed anonymously by a fellow cyclist, though members of the bicycling community sometimes hold ceremonies at ghost bike sites to commemorate the dead cyclist, as described in the Boston Globe on June 30. The first ghost bike appeared in St. Louis in 2003 and the movement has spread internationally as a way to raise awareness about bicycle safety and sharing the road.

The Virginia Road ghost bike was installed by Concord resident Erik Limpaecher, according to an August 23 Globe article. The bike was attached to the stop sign along with a placard reading “M. Himelfarb, father of 2, 8-17-2016, Come to Full Stop.”

“I didn’t expect it to be taken down within hours,” Limpaecher told the Globe. “It was really disappointing… I assume they [took it down] because of some interpretation of the town’s laws. But I would hope that they would have empathy for the family of the cyclist, and for the cycling community.”

The ghost bike was removed mainly because of its location, where it was a distraction to drivers and ironically might pose a safety hazard, according to Town Administrator Tim Higgins. When police remove the bike, they didn’t know who had put it there, but Limpaecher, who did not request guidance or permission from the town about his idea, subsequently came forward and requested return of the bike, Higgins said.

“We understand that well-intentioned people may want to pay tribute to the deceased and may want to call attention to the tragedy in the hope of raising awareness and urging greater caution,” Higgins said. In a case like this, “we work closely with the family and attempt to be as accommodating as possible while being mindful of the need not to permit roadside memorials that may distract drivers and cyclists, or obstruct sight distances in a manner that may inadvertently make conditions less safe. The stop sign chosen as the location for the ‘ghost bike’ is at the corner of a heavily traveled intersection where the roadways meet at a sharp angle; a more inappropriate location could not have been chosen.”

While there is no specific town regulation governing this sort of situation, “it’s a public right of way and it’s the town’s responsibility to maintain it clear of obstructions,” Higgins added. “Things are not as simple as they may first appear, and town officials are generally thoughtful in trying to balance the interests of all of the parties out of respect for the people involved, but this well-intentioned person preempted that.”

Ghost bike for earlier victim

Himelfarb, 59, was the second person to die while bicycling in Lincoln this summer. Wayland resident Eugene Thornberg, 61, was fatally struck by a vehicle at the intersection of Routes 117 and 126 on June 16. According to a news item posted by the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition (MassBike), a bicyclist advocacy group, a ghost bike memorial service hosted by Thornberg’s family is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 10 at 11 a.m. at the accident site. Lincoln police will close the roads in the immediate area for the service and allow the ghost bike to remain on site for the rest of that weekend, according to a web post by Richard Fries, executive director of MassBike.

Lincoln Police Chief Kevin Kennedy could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Ghost bikes are often removed after a period of time, including one in memory of 18-year-old cyclist Fritz Philogene, who was killed in Dorchester last year. “Rumor was that his family, who lives nearby, had it removed because it’s a harsh reminder for the family when they pass the intersection,” said Peter Cheung, a member of a group that helps others make ghost bikes and plan memorial events. Cheung, who also leads the monthly Boston Bike Party ride, said his group was not involved in either Lincoln ghost bike installation.

“I have an emotional reaction to [ghost bikes] as a cyclist and find them a very poignant memorial and an effective reminder to drive consciously. There is much misconception about the rights of cyclists on public roadways,” said Lincoln resident John Mendelson, a cyclist who posted the August 23 Globe article on the LincolnTalk email list, sparking a range of reactions from residents.

Now that Lincoln officials know Limpaecher’s identity, “we will attempt to come up with an approach [for a memorial] that respects the interests of all parties, including those of the family of the deceased and those of the traveling public,” Higgins said.

School steps up security in wake of graffiti incident

porticoBy Alice Waugh

At a hastily called public forum on Tuesday night, school officials and police shared what they knew about graffiti found on Monday morning outside the Brooks school and fielded questions from dozens of anxious parents.

Students and teachers entering through the main Brooks entrance were greeted on Monday morning with the words “memento mori” spray-painted in large black letters under the portico. The Latin phrase, which means “remember that you must die,” has its origins in medieval reflections on mortality and the transient nature of life and is sometimes evoked in historical illustrations featuring skulls or skeletons.

“Memento mori” is the motto carved in an arch over the Prufrock Preparatory School entrance in the 2009 book A Series of Unfortunate Events #5: The Austere Academy (part of the popular Lemony Snicket series of books for middle-school-age children) and is also the name of a gift shop at Disneyworld.

Parents and school officials were understandably nervous given the recent terrorist attacks in Europe and the history of school shootings in America. “This incident has made this feel real,” Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall said at the forum. “It’s the first time on this campus, at least for a while, that has made it feel very close-up to us that something dangerous could actually happen.”

Tighter security

The school has tightened security measures, including keeping doors locked at all times except during drop-off and dismissal. Visitors at other times must now press a buzzer to alert the office, where staff can see visitors on camera and hit a release button to let them in.

Lincoln police have increased patrols on campus and reached out to other area police department, and the regional School Threat Assessment Response team (STAR) that responds to school crises. Though there are currently no suspects, “the more people who know about it and talk about it, hopefully some information will filter back to us,”Lincoln Police Chief Kevin Kennedy said.

Officials have also contacted mental health professionals at the Lincoln School and Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School to see “if there are kids on our radar,” McFall said, adding that “we’ve identified some of those kids to have conversations with.”

Kennedy and Detective Ian Spencer reassured parents several times that the police were taking the incident very seriously. However, because the graffiti was a “veiled statement” and no specific individuals or ethnic/religious groups were targeted, police have classified the incident as a low-level threat, Kennedy said.

Some parents at the forum said the threat level should be raised, but officials steered away from that idea. “We’ve done everything we could do short of canceling school,” McFall said. “We’ve taken as many steps as we can at this point.”

Kennedy agreed, saying, “I’m personally at a loss as to what more at this stage of investigation we could do.”

Several parents asked about security after dismissal when most teachers have left but after-school activities are going on at the school. “I’m going to be completely honest and say I don’t think we can fully support supervision of the building after school, so to some extent this is a decision for families,” McFall responded.

Widespread anxiety among forum attendees

The fear of something worse happening could be heard in many of the parent questions and comments, which included suggestions for keeping the doors locked at all times (even during drop-off and dismissal), a town-wide robocall, more sophisticated security cameras or even alerting the FBI. They worried about past situations where a seemingly minor incident turned out to be a missed warning sign.

“This response feels very measured and very logical and well thought out, but part of me is also frightened,” one woman said. “I don’t know the answer but I wanted to share that those things are really swirling in my head.”

The school security cameras operate in real time and do not make recordings for later review, McFall noted. If the school wanted to take that step, the school administration would have to notify all parents that their children are being recorded and install signs to that effect, and the School Committee would have to draft a policy governing the use of video recordings, she said.

A survey last year showed an almost even split between parents who want more security measures and those who want to preserve the welcoming atmosphere of the school, McFall said. “It’s a question about our culture and how much of a change we want to make,” she said.

“The dark fears we’re all thinking and not saying are not going to be stopped by locked doors,” a parent said. Although increased security and cameras would probably be a good idea, he worried about changing the school “to the point where it feels really cold and falsely secure.”

“It’s hard to say, but we have to acknowledge that a lot of these steps we take are about making ourselves feel safe when we may not actually be safe,” McFall said. “It’s about how we want to feel as a community and if we want our kids to live in fear or not. We need to think about what those tradeoffs are.”

Chief talks about police operations, crime prevention

Police-Cap(Editor’s note: This is Antia’s report on a March 25 “Fireside Chat” with Lincoln Police Chief Kevin Kennedy sponsored by the Council on Aging.)

By Sharon Antia

One of the pressing questions we had was in relation to the police log that appears in most every issue of the Lincoln Journal. There is one entry that finds its way into the log quite frequently that none of us understood, and that is “the box.” [Read more…] about Chief talks about police operations, crime prevention

Lincoln Police warn citizens of phone scams

police logoThe following is a notice from Lt. Sean Kennedy of the Lincoln Police Department.

We would like to notify the community that we have received numerous citizen complaints over the past few months of several different telephone scams. These citizen complaints are not unique to Lincoln, as neighboring communities are fielding similar complaints. Several of these scams are specifically targeting the elderly community. Some of the scams that we and neighboring police departments have learned about include:

  1. A person calls reporting that they’re calling from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and are demanding that money for back taxes be paid immediately by wire transferring money from their bank account. In some cases the scammers are telling citizens that they have warrants out for their arrest and the money needs to be paid or they’re going to be arrested. The scammers are using “spoofed” phone numbers which allows them to use a computer program in which they can select a specific phone number. The scammer usually chooses a local number which appears on the citizen’s caller ID. The citizen assumes it’s a local number and it’s a legitimate phone call. In one case the scam caller spoofed a local government phone number.
  1. A person calls reporting that they’re calling from out of the country and their grandchild has been arrested and is sitting in a foreign jail, or they’ve been involved in a motor vehicle crash. In order to get out of jail or out of the country, they need money wire transferred or cash needs to be sent immediately via overnight mail to a specific address.

It’s important to know that the IRS and other government entities will never call citizens directly demanding money. They will send their correspondence through the mail. The most important thing to remember is: DO NOT provide any personal information to anyone over the phone such as your Social Security number, bank account number, credit card number or date of birth.

If you’re offered a “deal” over the phone or through the mail that seems too good to be true, it is. All these deals require the citizen to provide personal information. If you have provided your personal information, immediately notify the bank or the credit card company. You also want to do a credit check of your personal information using one of the credit monitoring companies (Equifax, TransUnion or Experian). It’s also a good idea to put a fraud alert on your credit.

Please call the Lincoln Police Department and report any suspicious calls of this nature.

Kennedy eyed as next Lincoln police chief

police logoLt. Kevin Kennedy, a longtime member of the Lincoln Police Department, is in line to become the town’s next chief of police and will be formally interviewed by the Board of Selectmen at its May 12 meeting.

Kennedy, who has been with the Lincoln police for 22 years, would succeed retiring Chief of Police Kevin Mooney if the board votes to hire him. There are no other candidates being considered, according to Town Administrator Tim Higgins.

“The board and I feel he’s uniquely qualified for the position,” Higgins said of Kennedy. “He’s committed himself to Lincoln for his entire career, and the police chief has done a fantastic job of cultivating him [for the chief’s role] over the years.”

The selectmen have received letters in support of Kennedy’s candidacy from many organizations in town, including the Parks and Recreation Commission, the Council on Aging and the schools, according to Higgins. “He’s very well known and well regarded for his work in Lincoln,” he said.

Kennedy has served in several roles in Lincoln including that of juvenile officer. He has also completed leadership training with the FBI and the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, Higgins said.