Police deny 'serial killer' claims after 12th body found in New England in 4 months
The remains of another person have been uncovered in New England, adding to the alarming number of deaths in the area, but police deny they are in any way connected.
Last week, the Bristol County District Attorney's Office confirmed that 39-year-old Stephan Myers, of Falmouth, had been found dead behind Bristol Plymouth High School in Taunton, Massachusetts.
Myers, who died early on April 30, was reported by officials to have died after being been shot once on a construction site, as per Boston 25 News.
It’s understood that despite the deceased’s proximity to the school, he is in no way connected to the educational institution, Fox News reports.
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Myers is the 12th body to have been discovered dead by officials in the New England area in the last three months, stoking rumors of a serial killer online.
The remains of another deceased person, Paige Fannon, 35, were found by detectives in the Norwalk River in Norwalk in early March.
Most recently, on April 22, another woman was found unresponsive off a bike path in Springfield at the 1500 block of Hall of Fame Avenue. She was later pronounced dead by authorities.
Despite the growing number of New England deaths, law enforcement officials claim there is no connection between any of them.
"While online conversations around these incidents continue to grow, we urge the public to be mindful of the role that social media can play in spreading fear or misinformation,” Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni said while speaking to reporters.
“Unverified claims can compromise active investigations and contribute to a sense of chaos that does not reflect the full picture."
Connecticut State Police have also released a statement, claiming ‘there is no information at this time suggesting any connection to similar remains discoveries, and there is also no known threat to the public at this time' in relation to the multiple deaths in the state.
However, former Washington D.C. homicide detective Ted Williams claims investigation experts will not be as quick to rule anything out.
"The investigators who are conducting these investigations are not ruling out anything whatsoever at this stage of the investigation,” he told Fox News.
“They are primarily at the preliminary stages of gathering evidence at each one of these death scenes to try to establish a nexus between those scenes and a single individual or individuals.”
He added that while some of these deaths may ‘very well be of not a crime situation’, authorities are probably trying to ‘connect the dots, if the dots connect’.
“The information that they're providing the public is information that they believe the public more or less may need.”
Former FBI instructor and certified police instructor Scott Duffey has pleaded with locals to let law enforcement continue ‘answering the questions that they need to answer’.
“Nothing that I have seen would arise to a serial killer [being] responsible for any or most of these people who have been found,” he argued with The New York Post.
He added that locals should not ‘let [their] guard down’ as individuals looking to ‘take advantage of a vulnerable situation will do so’.
He advises that if you’re going running or out in the dark, you should take somebody with you or have your phone on your person.
“Just be aware of your surroundings,” Duffey added.
UNILAD has previously contacted the Springfield Police Department for comment.
Topics: US News, Crime, Gun Crime, True crime
Ella Scott