12-12-2011 Massachusetts:An aging child molester was murdered in prison just a few months before he was set to be released after spending nearly 10 years behind bars, authorities said.
Department of Correction spokeswoman Diane Wiffin said the inmate, Richard Silva 64, was discovered about 3 p.m. yesterday by a guard doing rounds during a shift change at MCI-Norfolk.
Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrisey’s office said state police assigned to the office are investigating.
“Due to evidence at the scene, the death is being investigated as a probable homicide,” a spokesman for the office said in a statement last night.
Wiffin said Silva, whose last known address was in Lowell, was sentenced to nine to 10 years in prison. He was convicted of indecent assault and battery of a child under 14 in January 2003. He was due to be released in March 2012.
She said the assault happened in May 1989.
Morrissey’s office said no one has yet been charged or arrested for the death.
According to the Sex Offender Registry Board’s online database, an incarcerated Richard Silva of the same age and with the same 1991 conviction date had two prior convictions for indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, in 1971 and in 1973. ..Source.. by O’Ryan Johnson
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Convicted killer accused of prison murder
1-27-2012 Massachusetts:
A career criminal serving life for the murder of one woman, and awaiting trial in another killing, was charged today with last month’s slaying of fellow MCI-Norfolk inmate Richard Silva, a convicted child molester.
Christopher Fletcher, 50, formerly of Leominster, was indicted by a Norfolk grand jury for beating Silva, 64, to death on Dec. 12, as Silva was nearing the end of his incarceration on sexual abuse charges, Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey said.
Fletcher’s attorney declined comment. Morrissey’s spokesman, David Traub, declined to comment on what evidence prosecutors hold, including whether it includes prison security video.
An arraignment date has not been set.
Fletcher, who the Department of Correction has moved to maximum security at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, rape and kidnapping earlier this month in Worcester Superior Court for the December 1986 slaying in Sterling of Peggy Sue Calvillo, 24, a factory worker and mother of two police believed Fletcher first ran down with a car.
Fletcher is already serving life without parole for the 1995 murder of Elizabeth Salsbury of Lunenberg. When he was arrested for Salsbury’s murder, he told police he had killed before and confessed to Calvillo’s murder, Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said.
Salsbury’s body was found behind a car dealership in Shirley. Police said she had been stabbed repeatedly in the throat.
“I commend the correction officers, administration and investigators at the Department of Correction for their constructive partnership and hard work in this investigation, and thank the Massachusetts State Police Crime Scene Services Section and the homicide detectives attached to the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office for their continued professionalism and hard work,” Morrissey said today.
Richard Silva , 64, was serving prison time for a 2003 Suffolk Superior Court sexual abuse conviction, according to Department of Correction spokeswoman Diane Wiffin. The offenses occurred in May 1989, but they were only the latest in a string of sexual abuse convictions dating back to the 1970s, according to the state’s Sex Offender Registry Board.
Silva was scheduled to be released in March after serving a nine- to 10-year stretch for a 2003 sexual abuse conviction. He’d previously been convicted of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 in 1971, 1973 and 1974. In 1991, he was convicted of two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child over 14. ..Source.. by Laurel J. Sweet
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