Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett were wrongly named as suspects in the Oct. 1989 death of Carol Stuart, whose husband, Charles Stuart, had orchestrated her killing.
Members of Bennett’s family and Swanson both called for some kind of payment for their suffering. Swanson told reporters after the news conference that he was broke.
“I just need some financial compensation for all the trouble and pain I’m still going through,” he said, adding he was “glad this is happening today.”
Charles Stuart said a Black man forced his way into their car as the couple left a birthing class at a city hospital in 1989. The man ordered them to drive to the city’s Mission Hill neighborhood and robbed them before shooting Carol Stuart in the head and Charles in the chest, according to Charles.
Carol Stuart, 29, died the following morning at the same hospital where the couple had attended birthing classes. The baby, delivered by cesarean section, survived just 17 days.
Charles Stuart survived the shooting, with his description of a Black attacker eventually sparking a widespread Boston police “stop and frisk” crackdown of Black men in the neighborhood, even as some investigators had already come to doubt his story.
“What was done to you was unjust, unfair, racist and wrong,” Wu said Wednesday.
During the crackdown, police first arrested Swanson before ruling him out, and then took Bennett into custody. Stuart would later identify Bennett in late December. But by then, Stuart’s story had already begun to fall apart.
Swanson and Bennett denied having any involvement in Carol Stuart’s death. Neither were formally charged. Charles Stuart’s brother, Matthew, eventually confessed to helping him hide the gun.
On Jan. 4, 1990, Charles Stuart parked his car on the Tobin Bridge that leads in and out of Boston and jumped, plunging to his death. His body was recovered later that day.
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