Heroic couple, victim’s wife share unique bond
The deputy sheriff who shot a knife-wielding man, ending his deadly rampage in Taunton’s Silver City Galleria last spring said he and his wife are haunted by what happened.
“It’s still very difficult,” Plymouth County K-9 Officer James Creed said in a quiet voice. “It’s something that’s going to be with us forever.”
Bristol District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn reported yesterday that Creed was “clearly justified in using deadly force” in taking down Arthur DaRosa, 28, who had already stabbed to death Patricia Slavin, 80, and critically wounded her daughter Kathleen Slavin before driving to the mall, where he killed George Heath, 56, of Taunton.
Creed said of the 13-page outcome of Quinn’s investigation, “It’s definitely a weight off my shoulders to hear the final report. It was a pretty complicated incident, so we had to wait. It took us a little while to get back to normal.”
Creed was off-duty the evening of May 10 and out to dinner at Bertucci’s Restaurant with his wife Laura, a registered nurse.
DaRosa, a mentally disturbed man who had been released from Morton Hospital just hours earlier, stormed in and plunged a steak knife into the head of Heath, a visual design instructor at the Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School.
“Your body just kind of takes over and you do what you’re trained to do,” said Creed, who drew his personal .45-caliber Glock.
According to Quinn’s report, DaRosa told Creed, “You and I are both going to die today,” right before the deputy fired.
Laura Creed, meanwhile, was rendering first aid to the mortally wounded Heath and Sheenah Savoy, the pregnant waitress Heath died trying to protect.
“My initial reaction was I need a land line to call 911. Then nurse mode kicked in and I wasn’t going anywhere without this guy,” an emotional Laura Creed said at a press conference yesterday with her husband and George Heath’s widow Rosemary Heath.
“We’ve talked about when something happens, he helps and I run. But I wasn’t going anywhere without him,” Laura Creed said.
“I am beyond proud, beyond lucky. He’s my hero. He’s my best friend. He’s amazing, and so is Rosemary,” she said. “She has helped us through our healing process more than you’ll ever know ... The story moves on, but not for us. We won’t for a long time, if not forever.”
James Creed is training a new canine partner named Heath — with Rosemary’s blessing.
“I love them,” Rosemary Heath said of the couple.