Boston Mayor Michelle Wu Apologizes To Black Men Falsely Accused Of Carol Stuart's Murder!

Boston man finally gets apology for a crime he didn't commit.

The families of Willie Bennett and Albie Swanson were present when Boston mayor Michelle Wu read an apology on behalf of the city for wrongly accusing them of killing Carol Staurt.

During the late 1980s, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush got "tough on crime."

In the city of Boston, tensions were rising when the story broke on national TV about Charles and Carol Stuart being shot in the Boston neighborhood of Mission Hill.

Mission Hill, a predominately Black neighborhood became the center of the Boston Police's racist "stop and frisk" and "racial profiling" of its residents.

Mind you former rapper and internet troll Raymond "Benzino" Scott grew up in the Boston neighborhoods of  Mission Hill and Roxbury. Scott is infamous for his feuds with Eminem and his own daughter, rapper/model Coi Leray.

The Boston Police and the Suffolk County prosecutor Newman A. Flanagan were calling for the reestablishment of the death penalty and called upon many Black leaders to do something about the unruly children.

Stuart was having an affair on his wife, Carol. She was pregnant with his child. She wanted to carry to term. He wanted her to abort it. He also felt that her life being taken out would help financially. He saw the expenses could pile up if she divorced him and got him for child and spousal support. He was making a reasonable amount of money working in a luxury fur store. 

On October 23, the couple attended childbirth classes at Brigham and Women's Hospital and then drove through the Roxbury neighborhood. Stuart later told police that a young adult African-American gunman with a raspy voice and wearing a striped tracksuit forced his way into their car at a stoplight, ordered them to drive to nearby Mission Hill, robbed them, and shot Charles in the stomach and Carol in the head. Stuart said he managed to drive away and call the emergency number 9-1-1 on his car phone.

Carol was shot fatally. She was induced an emergency caesarean section and delivered her son. Her son would later pass away from trauma and oxygen deprivation.

Stuart who self inflicted his gunshot wound blamed a Black man for the shooting.

Boston Police detectives Robert Ahearn and Robert Tinlin immediately suspected Stuart because he seemed too calm when recounting the murder. They were overruled by their superiors, who pursued Stuart's description of the assailant. The case was assigned to lead detective Peter O’Malley.

Boston mayor Michelle Wu held a press conference to apologize for the city's decision to racialized a criminal act.

In late October, the Boston Police arrested Alan "Albie" Swanson, a Black man who matched Stuart's description. Officers found newspaper clippings about the murder in Swanson's bathroom, but they concluded he had been too intoxicated to have committed the crime.

In mid-November, the police arrested William "Willie" Bennett based on a tip. Their suspicions increased after finding that a bullet in his mother's home matched the caliber of the gun used in the murders. Two days later, on November 13, Bennett was charged with the robbery of a video store several weeks earlier. Stuart, who was released from the hospital on December 5, identified Bennett as his attacker in a police lineup on December 28, 1989.

Soon it became clear that Stuart and his family made up the claims of a random Black man robbing and shooting him and Carol. The law would soon focus on him and it led to the killer committing suicide.

At a press conference Monday, Wu issued a formal apology to Willie Bennett and Alan Swanson, who were both publicly linked to the case. Wu was joined at the press conference by Swanson and Bennett's family, as he was unable to attend; the Boston Globe said he now has dementia.

"We are here today to acknowledge the tremendous pain that the city of Boston inflicted on Black residents throughout our neighborhoods 34 years ago," said Wu. "The mayor's office, city officials and the Boston Police Department took actions that directly harmed these families and continue to impact the larger community, reopening a wound that has gone untended for decades."  

In October 1989, Charles Stuart told police that a Black man shot him and his pregnant wife Carol in their car as they were leaving a birthing class at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Carol and her unborn baby died. Stuart was shot in the abdomen but survived.

"There was no evidence that a Black man committed this crime," said Wu. "But that didn't matter because the story was one that confirmed and exposed the beliefs that so many shared...At every level and at every opportunity, those in power closed their eyes to the truth because the lie felt familiar. They saw the story they wanted to see."

Charles Stuart killed his wife Carol after she found out he had an affair and she was going to divorce him and make him pay for support. He made a racial hoax.

"On behalf of the Boston Police Department, the mayor's office and the entire city of Boston, I want to say to Mr. Swanson and Mr. Bennett, the entire Bennett family and Boston's entire Black community, I am so sorry for what you endured," said Wu. "I am so sorry for the pain that you have carried for so many years. What was done to you was unjust, unfair, racist and wrong."

Swanson and Bennett's family both received letters of apology but they said they've been looking for more for years. Bennett later sued the city and his mother received a small monetary settlement of $12,500 in 1995. Swanson said he remains destitute as a result of the wrongful accusations and arrest.

"I need housing, reparations, I don't have anything," said Swanson. "I'm still homeless and still in the same position."

Bennett says he can't forget because his name is now forever linked to Charles Stuart's - a man he calls a monster: "I aint got nothing to say about that man. He did what he did and now he's gone. I'll see him in hell, if there is a hell," he said.

Bennett says he is still angry about being wrongfully considered a suspect in the Stuart case and he is bitter that he was never compensated for all he went through.