A missing woman from Harvard, Massachusetts, was found dead in Vermont; her ex-boyfriend, a person of interest in the case, was fatally shot by police.
Matthew Davis, the ex-boyfriend and a person of interest in the death of Mary Anderson of Harvard, Massachusetts, had a violent criminal history, according to court documents obtained by NBC10 Boston.
Davis, who was fatally shot Tuesday night during a confrontation with police in Vermont, was indicted in 2009 in connection with a stabbing incident in Pittsfield earlier that year.
According to a Pittsfield police report, Davis reportedly hid in a closet in the apartment of the mother of his two children. The woman told police she was in bed with another man around 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 17, 2009, when Davis came out of the bedroom closet where he had been hiding and began attacking the man with a knife.
The man got out of the bed and ran to the front door located down a set of stairs, the police report said. The woman told police that as the man was fleeing "he was yelling that he needed help and that he was dying."
At this point, the woman said she got out of bed and ran to her upstairs neighbor's residence. She said as she did this, she passed Davis in the living room, "and he had a knife in his hand." She said she believed it might have been one of her kitchen knives.
The woman said she ran upstairs via an indoor fire escape and banged on the door until her neighbor let her in and they called police.
The neighbor later told police that she had let Davis into the apartment around 7:30 the previous evening through the same fire escape after he knocked on her door and said he had lost his key.
When they arrived at the scene, police said they observed "a large quantity of blood on the floor" of the front porch. The window to the front door had been broken out and was also covered in blood.
Police said they searched the apartment for Davis, but he had already left the area.
Shortly before 7 a.m., police received a report from a nearby resident saying that a person was lying in a driveway. Police responded to the scene and found Davis lying down, hiding between a snowbank and a fence. He was patted down and a small razor knife was found in his jacket pocket.
He was taken into custody and transported to the Pittsfield Police Department, the report said, where he was booked for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He was later indicted on charges of armed assault to murder, armed assault and burglary, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and entering at night and wound up serving time at Northeast Correctional Center in Concord until his parole in January of 2015.
Davis, 34, of Fitchburg, who was wanted for questioning in Anderson's disappearance and death, was shot and killed by Vermont State Police and Brattleboro police on Tuesday night. Police said they found Davis just before 8 p.m. walking in West Brattleboro, armed with a knife.
Police said they performed "life-saving measures" on Davis but he died from his injuries at the scene.
Wednesday afternoon, Vermont State Police publicly identified the troopers involved in the shooting as Detective Sgt. Jesse Robson and Detective Sgt. Samuel Truex. Both men fired their handguns and will be on paid administrative leave for at least five days.
State police also identified Patrol Officer Ryder Carbone as the Brattleboro Police Department member involved in the shooting, explaining that he fired his department-issued shotgun. Carbone is also on administrative leave, police said.
Anderson had been found dead earlier in the day in Brattleboro. She had been missing since last weekend, when she was last seen leaving a friend's house in Hudson, New Hampshire.
Vermont State Police say Anderson's body was found in her truck, a blue 2017 Toyota Tacoma with Massachusetts plates reading "8DXW20." They are asking anyone in New England, particularly in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, to reach out if they saw Anderson, Davis or the truck between Saturday night and Tuesday morning. Anyone with information is asked to call 802-722-4600 or click here to leave a tip anonymously.
