Crime & Safety
Suspect Identified in Beacon Hill Murder from 1970s
The suspect died in prison in 2001.
Police announced today that they connected a 39-year-old Mt. Vernon Street cold case murder to a serial rapist and killer.
DNA evidence connected Michael Sumpter to the unsolved rape and murder of 24-year-old Mary Lee McClain in her Beacon Hill apartment on Dec. 12, 1973. Sumpter died in 2001 of cancer while serving a prison term for the rape of a Beacon Street woman.
In 2010, police used the DNA collected after that rape to connect him to the rape and murder of another Beacon Street woman.
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“This is a story about an old case and new technology, but it’s also a story about hope and perseverance,” District Attorney Daniel Conley said today. “Mary’s family never lost their faith that her murder would be solved.”
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