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Background: News footage from the scene where Joseph Donahue was found dead on his houseboat in Charlestown, Mass. (WCVB). Inset (left): Joseph Donahue (Photo provided to WCVB). Inset (right): News footage of suspect Nora Nelson in court (WCVB).
A Massachusetts woman was charged with murder in connection with the apparent stabbing death of a man who lived on a houseboat.
Nora Nelson, 24, appeared in court for an arraignment on Feb. 7 to face charges for the murder of 65-year-old Joseph Donahue, a lawyer who lived alone on his houseboat in Charlestown, a neighborhood in Boston. Donahue’s body was found on Feb. 2 by police during a wellness check.
In court, prosecutors described the grisly scene, saying that Donahue was “wrapped in a white and blue covering, secured with duct tape, and affixed with weights.” Investigators told WCVB, a local ABC affiliate, that Donahue had been stabbed ‘dozens’ of times, and so violently that the blade of the alleged murder weapon broke off in his skull.
Reporting by WCVB said that Donahue lived by himself on the houseboat with his two dogs. But when police arrived at the houseboat on Feb. 2 to check on him, Nelson answered the door. When questioned by police at the scene, WCVB reported that she was apparently “evasive and unresponsive.” She also reportedly told police that Donahue was at a strip club. Nelson was arrested at the scene on unrelated warrants.
Officers soon found Donahue’s body, wrapped in a tarp and secured with duct tape, with hand weights attached. Investigators told WCVB that he had been stabbed numerous times in the head and chest. Divers also reportedly found part of the alleged murder weapon.
Police said the body of a dog was also found in the water outside the boat.
The outlet reported that when Nelson was remanded to be taken into custody and held without bail, she said, “Nobody ever told me that this even happened at my house. This is the first time I’ve even heard of this happening at my house.”
The nature of the relationship between Nelson and the alleged victim was not immediately clear.