The Question of a Killer's Confession
Did Charles E. Pierce Murder Boxford Teenager Michelle Wilson in 1969 or Did He Falsely Confess the Crime
By Shawn R. Dagle
In a Florida psychiatric hospital a patient arrested on charges of indecent assault involving teenage girls confessed to a shocking crime.
A decade earlier the man said he had murdered a 13-year-old girl returning home on her bike one evening in his home state of Massachusetts.
Following word of his confession police traveled south to Florida to interview Charles E. Pierce – a traveling carnival worker and career criminal who admitted to police that he had committed the murder.
On November 22, 1969, 13-year-old Michelle Wilson had been traveling home on her bike in Boxford when she was abducted by a man in an automobile.
Michelle’s body was later found by a motorist who had stopped to let a group of pheasants cross in front of their vehicle near a stone wall. She had been strangled and beaten and a large rock had been dropped on her head or neck.
Pierce confessed to the crime and was able to lead police to the area where her body was discovered. It appeared to be an open and shut case.
In addition to Michelle’s murder, Pierce would also confess to having committed between 15 and 22 murders from 1954 to 1978 including the murder of Michelle the only one he was convicted of.
Over the years there has been speculation regarding what other murders Pierce may have committed.
In addition to Michelle’s murder Pierce also confessed to killing a young boy in Chicago named Billy DeSousa and to the kidnapping of seven-year-old Janice Pockett in Tolland, Connecticut in July of 1973.
There also has been speculation that Pierce could have been involved in the murder of Mary Catherine Olenchuk in Maine in 1970 and Andy Puglisi – a ten-year-old boy who went missing in Lawrence, Massachusetts in August of 1976.
We have also detailed in past newsletters some other murders that Pierce could have potentially been connected to including that of a young boy whose body was found in the 1950s in the same Maine town that Pierce’s mother was from.
While there is circumstantial evidence in many of these cases that could point to Pierce being involved there also is evidence that he wasn’t.
In the disappearance of Janice Pockett for example Pierce told police at least two different locations where he supposedly buried her remains. Nothing was found in either location. His dates also appeared to be confused.
While Pierce claimed to be serial killer he also was a serial confessor who never could provide enough evidence to conclusively connect him to any of the murders he said he committed with the exception of the murder of Michelle Wilson.
Given Pierce’s conviction in Michelle’s murder it has always been assumed he was her killer – even though there has been major doubts about some of his other confessions. That said a question remains. Could Pierce have also falsely confessed to Michelle’s murder as well?
While Pierce allegedly told a fellow patient at the psychiatric hospital in Florida that he killed Michelle and later confessed to police as well he later recanted his confession and pled not guilty in a Massachusetts superior court.
From the onset there were problems with Pierce’s confession. According to prosecutors Pierce often appeared to be confused about the details of Michelle’s murder – including the time of year and the clothing she was wearing. This led investigators to question whether he had been involved in other murders and was simply confusing the details. The other possibility of course was that Pierce did not murder Michelle.
That said Pierce was able to lead investigators to within feet of where Michelle’s body was discovered. The newspapers however at the time of her disappearance had provided essentially a roadmap to where Michelle’s body had been located along Mill Road.
According to those reports she had been found three miles from her home, 15 feet off the roadway, in a culvert behind a low stone wall, lying directly next to the wall. One account even reported that several houses were within ten yards of the spot where she was found by the wall.
In fact when Pierce recanted his confession he claimed he had gotten the details of the crime (which would include the location of her body) from newspaper accounts.
There also was evidence that may have potentially exonerated Pierce. During their investigation Boxford police had developed a sketch of a man that had reportedly attempted to accost a girl the prior autumn in Boxford.
Like Michelle the girl was 13-years-old and claimed to have seen the man again in the area in July of 1969 just a few months before Michelle’s murder.
The girl’s description nor the composite matched Pierce. The suspect was described as 35 years old – Pierce was in his late forties. The suspect had black hair combed straight back. Pierce’s was gray. The suspect was described as pasty colored with bony hands. Pierce was tall and muscular.
Boxford police later received an anonymous letter from a woman postmarked from Michelle’s hometown in Maine (Michelle and her family had only recently moved to Boxford prior to her disappearance) alleging to know her killer. The letter described a man fitting the description police already had of Michelle’s alleged killer.
The tip was so credible that Boxford’s police chief told the press that it was “more valid” than the hundreds of others the police had received up to that point in the case. The description of the suspect and the composite however bore no resemblance to Pierce.
Fingerprints were also collected from Michelle’s bike. The fingerprints were examined by police and were not Michelle’s. The FBI even was brought in to perform an analysis. There however is no indication – at least according to published reports – that those fingerprints belonged to Pierce.
There are even questions if Pierce may have even been able to have physically committed the murder by himself. The rock that was dropped on Michelle’s head or neck was so heavy that it reportedly took two men to lift off of her after her body was discovered.
While Pierce was described as tall and muscular he also had arthritis in his back and at the time of his arrest in 1979 could barely walk on his own and had to be helped into the courtroom.
Besides the weight of the rock there is also other evidence suggesting that more than one person may have been involved in Michelle’s murder. A witness around the time of her disappearance had reported seeing two vehicles parked near where her body was discovered.
At the time of the murder police had also said they believed that a white car – potentially of foreign make – may have been involved with her killing. Pierce drove a dark car – which according to some reports was a station wagon.
A white car had also been seen in the area of another child murder that same year – that of Dawn Cave in Bethany, Connecticut. Cave had disappeared after leaving her home that May. She was last seen walking down the road near her home. She was later discovered behind a stone wall. She had been beaten with a stone.
There were a number of similarities in the two crimes. Michelle was 13. Cave was 14. Both were blonde haired. Both had disappeared while on the roadway near their homes. Both were beaten or killed with stones. Both were found near stone walls. Multiple stones with blood on them were found near both their bodies. White cars were reported near the scenes of where they were taken or murdered. They both also disappeared in the late afternoon.
The similarities were enough to encourage police in Connecticut to travel to Boxford to investigate whether the two crimes were connected.
The two person theory is lent further credence by the fact that at one time police were looking at two men they believed could potentially have been connected to Michelle’s murder.
In 1972 investigators questioned a father and son in connection to Michelle’s murder. They were accused of multiple rapes in Massachusetts. The son was also questioned in connection to three murders including Michelle’s.
In 1970 the son had been arrested in New Hampshire in connection to the rape of a six-year-old girl. He had been sent to a mental institution but escaped. He was also accused of rapes in Stoneham, Walpole, Framingham, Haverhill and Lawrence.
At the time of Michelle’s murder police said they believed her murderer had used the pretext of her dog to lure her into a car – potentially saying her dog had been injured up the street. The son had reportedly used a similar pretext in the attempted rape of a seven-year-old girl in White Plains in May of 1972.
According to reports the victim had been standing near a service entrance to an apartment on North Broadway in White Plains that afternoon when a young man asked her to help him find his dog. He then led her up the street into another building where he attempted to rape her. The father ans son were never charged in Michelle’s murder.
If Pierce had indeed murdered Michelle there was one way he could have definitively proven it to investigators. The white knitted hat and one of Michelle’s matching mittens that she was wearing the day she was murdered were never found – apparent trophies taken by her killer.
If Pierce had killed Michelle and taken those trophies he could have potentially indicated to police where they might be found. That appears not to have occurred.
Pierce’s confession and other details surrounding his guilt in Michelle’s murder were never seriously challenged in court.
Three days into his trial Pierce decided to change his plea from not guilty to guilty of second degree murder and assault with the intent to rape. He would die decades later in prison taking the secrets of his many alleged crimes to his grave.
-December 5, 2022
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Sources
Daily Hampshire Gazette June 10, 1980 AP
Boston Globe “Boxford Girl’s Killer Reported Admitting Slaying in Chicago” John Yang March 26, 1981
The Boston Globe “Boxford Girl 13, Found Dead in Road in a Ditch” Stephen Kurkjian November 24, 1969
Boston Globe “No Clues in Boxford Girl’s Slaying” John C. Burke December 14, 1969
The Boston Globe “Dying Words of a Killer Sparks a Grim Police Search” Ellen O’Brien March 20, 1999
The Greenfield Recorder “Composite Drawing of Suspect” AP December 1, 1969
The Boston Globe Autopsy Shows Girl Attacked, Strangled” Gary Kayakachoian
November 29, 1969
The Hartford Courant “Crime Psychologist Called In” Kirk Hastian December 4, 1969
Boston Globe “A Killer Confesses” July 9, 1999
Boston Globe “Boxford Girl’s Slaying Probe Shifts to Maine” January 11, 1970
Boston Globe “Suspect Pleads Guilty in Bike Murder” Richard Connolly November 14, 1979
The Lowell Sun “Cases of Lowell Father, Son Charged in Series of Rapes Continued to May 24” May 18, 1972
The Lowell Sun “Lowell Youth Charged in Seven Rapes” May 12, 1972
The Herald Statesman “Father Son Linked to Series of Assaults on Young Girls” Ruth Pember May 11, 1972
The Boston Globe “Pets Seen Link in 3 Girls Death” John F. Cullen September 1, 1970
The Boston Globe November 24, 1969 Stephen Kurkjian
The Boston Globe November 26, 1969 “It was Brief Funeral for Boxford Girl” Frank Donovan