BOSTON — It was an infamous murder that roiled Boston to its core, sharpening divisions in a city long torn along racial lines, and directing renewed suspicion and anger toward the Boston Police Department by the city's black community .
On Wednesday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu planned to formally apologize on behalf of the city to Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett for their wrongful arrests following the 1989 death of Carol Stuart, whose husband, Charles Stuart, orchestrated her murder.
Stuart blamed his wife's murder — and his own shooting in what he portrayed as an attempted carjacking — on an unknown black gunman, leading to a police crackdown in one of the city's traditionally black neighborhoods on look for a phantom attacker.
Charles Stuart said a black man forced his way into their car as the couple left a childbirth class at a city hospital on Oct. 23. The man ordered them to the Mission Hill area of the city and robbed them before shooting Carol Stuart in the head. and Charles in the chest, according to Charles.
Carol Stuart, 29, died the next morning at the same hospital where the couple had taken birthing classes. The baby, who was delivered by caesarean section, survived only 17 days.
Charles Stuart survived the shooting, with his description of a black assailant ultimately leading to a widespread Boston police crackdown on black men in the neighborhood, even though some investigators had already begun to doubt his story.
During the crackdown, police first arrested Swanson before expelling him, then took Bennett into custody. Stuart would later identify Bennett in late December. But by then, Stuart's story had already begun to unravel. His brother, Matthew, admitted to helping hide the gun that shot Carol Stuart.
Early on the morning of January 4, 1990, Stuart, 30, parked his car on the Tobin Bridge leading in and out of Boston, jumped and plunged to his death. His body was found later that day.
The aggressive approach to the investigation caused deep wounds in the city and further deteriorated relations between the Boston Police Department and the black community.
Bennett, who denied having anything to do with Carol Stuart's death, unsuccessfully sued police, claiming officers violated his civil rights by coercing potential witnesses against him.
A recent look back at the murder by The Boston Globe and an HBO documentary series has shed new light on the crime, the black community's lingering memories and their treatment by police who dragged innocent residents into a futile search.