Secrets, serial killers and mob heists: True crime stories of New England
Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct the year the Entwistles were murdered.
Whitey Bulger. Lizzie Borden. The Boston Marathon bombing. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist.
New England is no stranger to intriguing crime sagas, nor popular media chronicling their every twist and turn. From movies to TV shows to books, podcasts and more, few regions have proved more fertile for true crime storytellers.
Here’s a sampling of New England cases that have been featured in true crime productions.
Massachusetts true crime stories
Christa Worthington
Fashion writer Christa Worthington, 46, was found stabbed to death on the floor of her Truro home in January 2002 with her 2-year-old daughter unharmed and clinging to her body. Christopher McCowen, 46, a trash collector, was charged with her murder in 2005 and later convicted. McCowen has maintained he’s innocent, and speculation about the case has continued thanks to multiple books, news specials and a dramatized film.
Featured in: Peter Manso’s book “Reasonable Doubt: The Fashion Writer, and the Trial of Chris McCowen” and Maria Flook’s book “Invisible Eden: A Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod”
The Bristol County Highway Killings
One of the Bay State’s most haunting cold cases, 11 women went missing between April and September 1988. Nine of their bodies were found along highways in Greater New Bedford, while two remain missing. Closure and answers have eluded their families, investigators and local residents ever since.
Featured in: Maureen Boyle’s book “Shallow Graves” and Aaron Cadieux’s documentary “The Highway Murders”
Molly Bish
Molly Bish was a 16-year-old Warren resident who disappeared from Comins Pond in 2000 shortly after she started working there as a lifeguard. Three years after she was reported missing, Molly’s partial remains were recovered from a hillside in Palmer a few miles from the pond. Her family received a fresh glimmer of hope in the unsolved case earlier this year: an anonymous tip led detectives to identify a person of interest, a registered sex offender who died in 2016, in Bish’s abduction and slaying.
Featured in: CBS’ “48 Hours” and Investigation Discovery’s “Disappeared”
The Entwistle murders
Rachel Entwistle, 27, and her 9-month-old daughter, Lillian Rose, were shot to death in their Hopkinton home in 2006, about 10 days after moving in. Neil Entwistle — Rachel’s husband and Lillian Rose’s father – is serving life in prison for their murders. The case made national headlines because Neil was deeply in debt, moved the gun used in the shooting and booked a one-way flight to his native England without reporting finding their bodies to police. His family insists he’s innocent, while Rachel’s family and prosecutors have condemned the theories used to make that case.
Featured in: Investigation Discovery’s “Handsome Devils” and Michele R. McPhee’s book “Heartless: The True Story of Neil Entwistle and the Cold Blooded Murder of his Wife and Child”
Amy Carnevale
Beverly resident Amy Carnevale, 14, was fatally stabbed by her 16-year-old boyfriend Jamie Fuller in August 1991 in a wooded area near the vacant United Shoe Machinery Corporation. Fuller, who confessed to the crime, then tied cinder blocks to her and dumped her body in Shoe Pond off McKay Street. A jury found Fuller guilty in 2012, rejecting the defense’s claims at trial that Fuller committed the crimes due to jealously and steroid and alcohol abuse.
Featured in: the dramatized 1996 NBC TV movie “No One Would Tell” and its 2018 Lifetime remake, each of which is based on a book of the same name
Rhode Island true crime stories
The Bonded Vault Heist
Mafia tales and capers are each prolific in the true crime genre, and the Ocean State is home to one of the most infamous cases to fit both categories. In 1975, eight thieves looted as much as $34 million in cash, gems, jewelry, silver bars and gold coins from the secret bank the Patriarca crime family operated inside the Hudson Fur Storage building on Cranston Street in Providence. What resulted was the longest, most expensive trial in Rhode Island history, plus a widespread belief that mafia boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca sanctioned the plot.
Featured in: Tim White, Randall Richard and Wayne Worcester’s book “The Last Good Heist,” the Crimetown podcast, and the 2019 feature film “Vault”
New Hampshire true crime stories
Pamela Smart
Pamela Smart’s murder trial made history 30 years ago as the first televised gavel to gavel, setting a frenzied international TV standard for O.J. Simpson, the Menendez brothers and other high-profile cases to come. Smart, 22, the media coordinator at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, was convicted in 1991 of using sex to convince 16-year-old sophomore William “Billy” Flynn to kill Smart’s husband Gregg, 24, at their condominium in Derry in May 1990. Flynn and three friends who aided him received reduced sentences for their cooperation, while Smart is still behind bars and insistent she didn’t orchestrate the execution.
Featured in: the dramatized 1995 film “To Die For,” the 2014 HBO documentary 'Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart,’ and the Investigation Discovery docu-series 'Pamela Smart: An American Murder Mystery'
The Bear Brook Murders
In 1985, the Granite State was rocked by the discovery of a barrel containing two dismembered girls near Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown. It happened again 15 years later when another barrel containing an adult woman and a child was found. The homicides perplexed investigators and residents for years. In 2017, a new forensic technique identified the likely culprit, a late serial killer named Terry Peder Rasmussen who went by “Bob Evans” in New Hampshire. Even then, the identities of the four victims remained a mystery until 2019 when an amateur investigator and a genetic genealogist helped authorities identify three of the victims as Marlyse Honeychurch and her young daughters Marie Vaughn and Sarah McWaters. The fourth victim remains unidentified but DNA testing has revealed she was related to Rasmussen.
Featured in: The New Hampshire Public Radio podcast “Bear Brook”
Maura Murray
Time has yielded few answers in the disappearance of Maura Murray, a University of Massachusetts-Amherst nursing student whose car was found crashed in Haverhill, New Hampshire, in February 2004. It’s unknown why Murray, 21, of Hanson, left campus after falsely telling professors there was a death in her family, and it’s unknown why she was in Haverhill. Investigators pursuing a tip jackhammered through the concrete basement of a Haverhill home in 2019 hoping to find new evidence, but came up empty.
Featured in: The “Missing Maura Murray” podcast, the docu-series “The Disappearance of Maura Murray” and ABC’s “20/20”
Connecticut true crime story
Jennifer Dulos
New Canaan's Jennifer Dulos, a mother of five, disappeared after dropping her kids off at school in May 2019. Her estranged husband, Fotis, died by suicide shortly after he was charged with her murder in January 2020. Jennifer’s body hasn’t been found, but police charged Fotis based on blood found in the home and security camera footage that showed Fotis and his girlfriend driving around Hartford, dumping dozens of garbage bags containing zip ties, duct tape and other items with Jennifer’s blood on them.
Featured in: a dramatized 2021 Lifetime movie “Gone Mom: The Disappearance of Jennifer Dulos”
Vermont unsolved murder case
Rita Curran was found dead in her apartment near the University of Vermont's campus in Burlington in July 1971. The 24-year-old teacher and graduate student had been beaten, strangled and sexually assaulted. Her killer has never been caught, though some suspect serial killer Ted Bundy. Investigators believe the slaying, the oldest cold case in Vermont, is still solvable but worry time is running out.
Featured in: various news stories, newsmagazines and true crime chronicles
Maine true crime story
Ayla Reynolds, a 20-month-old girl, was reported missing from her father’s home in Waterville a week before Christmas in 2011. What followed was the largest criminal investigation in Maine State Police history. Police believe Ayla’s disappearance is the result of foul play, in part because her blood was found in the home. Ayla’s mother has blamed Ayla’s father, while he and other family members believe Ayla was abducted despite a lack of evidence for that theory. “This case will never close until Ayla is found,” a state police spokesman has previously said.
Featured in: The "Dark Downeast" podcast