Massachusetts Woman Charged With Strangling Her 73-Year-Old Mother To Death
A 48-year-old Massachusetts woman is facing charges in connection with the death of her 73-year-old mother, who was found inside a Somerville apartment over the weekend.
April Monroe is charged with strangulation and assault and battery on a person over 60 causing serious bodily injury, according to an announcement from Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Somerville Chief of Police Charles Femino.
Gail Gasperini was reported missing Sunday by her husband, who said she went to visit her daughter but did not return.
According to a court document, the victim’s husband told police that Monroe suffers from mental health issues but did not have a history of violence.
Somerville police went to Monroe’s Summer Street apartment, gained access with the help of the building manager and found Gasperini’s body, the document said. She was pronounced dead at 10:25 p.m.
An officer wrote that he observed red marks on the front of Gasperini’s neck and two cuts on her back. A broken piece of an earring was tangled in her hair.
“The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner accepted the case and, during an autopsy conducted the following day, observed injuries to the body consistent with an assault.
Based on the subsequent investigation, the defendant was charged with allegedly causing those injuries,” Ryan and Femino said.
Investigators also spoke with Monroe’s brother, who said he called his sister on Sunday evening but she did not respond until later.
When she called him back, she told him that the police were in front of her building.
“(He) asked April if she was concerned that Gail was missing, to which she responded, she’s old and old people die all the time,” an officer wrote.
A ruling on the cause and manner of death is pending, and officials said additional charges are possible.
Prosecutors said Monroe changed her story several times during the investigation, at one point telling officers that she found her mother with blood coming out of her mouth and didn’t know what to do, so she went to a club to listen to music.
Following a court hearing on Thursday, the court ordered that Monroe be sent to a hospital in Worcester for a mental health evaluation.
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