Share and Follow
A Massachusetts man found guilty of murdering a college student nearly 40 years ago was sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday.
John Carey, 66, received the life sentence following his March 3 conviction for the first-degree murder of Claire Gravel, a student at Salem State University.
“Claire Gravel’s family has endured a long wait of 40 years for justice,” stated Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker. “The prosecutors, alongside our law enforcement partners, remained dedicated to Claire’s case. Today, we are gratified that the family finally has some answers and a measure of closure.”
At the time of being charged with Gravel’s murder, Carey was already serving a sentence at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Concord for an unrelated crime committed in 2008.
Claire Gravel, who was 20 years old and attending Salem State College, was tragically killed in June 1986. On Thursday, John Carey was handed a life sentence for her murder, bringing resolution to this decades-old cold case.
The case dates back to June 29, 1986, when she went to Major Magleashes’ Pub in Salem with members of her softball team. Gravel was last seen alive between 1:30 and 1:45 a.m. after being dropped off at her apartment on Loring Avenue in Salem.
Two days later, three workmen discovered her body in the woods.
FILE – An overall shot of the cemetery on Bridge Street in Salem, Massachusetts, on March 30, 2011. (Yoon S. Byun/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
The killing went unsolved for decades until investigators linked Carey’s DNA to samples collected from a tank top, the district attorney’s office said.
“What he left behind was his genetic blueprint on the murder weapon,” Deputy First Assistant District Attorney Kim Faitella told jurors during her closing arguments at Carey’s trial.
At the time of his arrest for Gravel’s death, Carey was already serving a prison sentence on charges related to trying to strangle another woman to death.
<!–>
–>