A Massachusetts high school student has been charged with murder in the death of a woman at her North Shore home on Thursday.
Essex District Attorney Paul Tucker said that Anthony DeMayo, a senior at Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody, would be arraigned on Friday, Boston 25 reports.
Tucker said that police responded to a 911 call about a person with a knife in Lynn late Thursday night and found DeMayo carrying a knife with a “reddish-brown stain consistent with blood.”
DeMayo was exhibiting “erratic behavior,” Tucker said, and was taken to a hospital for an evaluation.
Police searched DeMayo’s home in Lynn, he said, and “available technology” and other information led them to a home in Danvers, about eight miles away, where they found Janet Swallow, 68, dead from apparent stab wounds.
“As of now, the investigation has not found any connection between the defendant and the victim,” Tucker said. “We also believe, as of this point, that DeMayo acted alone … This was random.”
Ashley O’Brien, the woman who called 911 when she saw DeMayo on the street with a knife in Lynn, told WCVB that the young man she saw — she didn’t know him, she said — was behaving erratically at that point.
“He looked right in my eyes and I just kind of looked away,” she said. “And once he left, I just knew I had to call the cops because I mean, he was definitely looking to hurt somebody. I mean, he was definitely looking to hurt somebody. And he said that when the police got him too. He said that he wanted to know what it felt like to kill somebody, is what he actually said.”
Tucker said more details would be released at the arraignment.
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