BOSTON (AP) — The highest court in Massachusetts has upheld the first-degree murder conviction of a man who stalked a waitress for months, then mailed her a pipe bomb that exploded in her hands and killed her.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled Friday in the case of Steven Caruso.
Caruso was a regular at the Bickford’s restaurant in Medford where Sandra Berfield worked. After Berfield rejected Caruso’s request for a date, he began stalking her.
Berfield was killed when she opened a package containing a pipe bomb in January 2000.
In his appeal, Caruso insisted he was not the person who put the package on Berfield’s porch. He also argued that the testimony of a jailhouse snitch should not have been allowed.
The case led to new legal protections for women against stalkers.
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