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Background: News footage of the scene where human remains were found in Shirley, Mass., on March 4 (WBZ). Inset: Authorities identified the victim as Peter Degan (Middlesex County District Attorney”s Office).
Officials in Massachusetts have revealed the identity of an individual whose dismembered remains were discovered in a pond by a group of teenagers.
On March 4, the teenagers were engaged in snowy play near a bridge over Phoenix Pond when they stumbled upon what seemed to be a human limb submerged in the water. The Shirley Police Department promptly confirmed via a Facebook announcement that the teens had indeed found a human limb. As reported by local Fox affiliate WFXT, a woman named Katy Marsh, who encountered the scene while walking her dog, recounted how the teenagers reacted with visible distress. She described them as “dry heaving into the snow bank” and repeatedly exclaiming, “That’s so messed up, that’s so messed up.”
Marsh further shared with WFXT that she overheard someone remark, “Yep, that’s a leg. That’s a right foot, right leg.”
In an interview with local CBS affiliate WBZ, Dominic Dunn, a 15-year-old among the teens who discovered the remains, expressed his discomfort with the find. He remarked, “I definitely didn’t like that. Finding a leg while out with younger siblings, especially during a snowball fight with my little sister, was really unsettling.”
A day after the horrific find, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan held a press conference, during which she identified the owner of the human remains as 69-year-old Peter Degan. According to Ryan, a police diving team arrived at the scene after the initial report and found “additional body parts” in the pond. Ryan described the limbs as having been “clean cut” and “severed with a sharp force instrument.”
During a press briefing, authorities confirmed that while a complete body was not retrieved, all discovered body parts were identified as belonging to the same individual, Degan, through fingerprint analysis.
Ryan stated that Degan was a convicted felon who was living in a “pre-release house” after being released from the MCI-Shirley medium-security prison on Feb. 6. Degan pleaded guilty to money laundering and cocaine trafficking in 2019 and had completed his sentence. He was last seen alive on Feb. 27, Ryan said.
Authorities do not believe that Degan’s apparent homicide was random. The investigation into Degan’s death is ongoing, and Shirley Police Chief Samuel Santiago said that anyone with information that may be helpful can call 978-425-2642.