Cape man arraigned in stabbing death of wife
Police responding to multiple 911 calls reporting a violent incident early yesterday at a house on a quiet Cape Cod street arrived to find a man outside who told them he had killed his wife, prosecutors said.
Officers arrived at 89 Trout Brook Road in Cotuit at about 1:50 a.m. and found Christopher S. Fratantonio, 36, out front, Assistant District Attorney Daniel Higgins said.
“He made statements leading officers to believe he had stabbed his wife — the victim — to death,” Higgins said.
Inside, officers found Mary J. Fratantonio, 35, dead of multiple stab wounds in a bedroom, according to state police.
Christopher Fratantonio “gave a detailed description of his motive … and how he carried out the attack, including the location of the knife he used,” trooper Matthew R. Lavoie wrote in a report.
Authorities would not say what the motive was, however, or whether the couple’s two small children were in the house at the time of the killing.
At his Barnstable District Court arraignment yesterday, Fratantonio — a wood-floor installer with 1980s horror movies tattooed on his left arm — stood expressionless as his attorney, Colleen Duart, entered a not guilty plea on his behalf to charges of murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Judge Edward Sharkansky ordered him held without bail pending a March 27 pretrial conference.
Fratantonio was married previously, on June 16, 2004, under the name Christopher Scott Melvin, a name he changed the following year to his mother’s maiden name after her death, according to court records. The marriage produced one daughter, who is now 11, and Fratantonio and her mother filed for divorce in October 2008.
Neighbors knew his subsequent wife, the victim, as “Molly” and said she worked with special needs students at Barnstable High School.
“Molly was social. He barely waved when he went by,” said one woman, who said the couple had lived on Trout Brook Road for about seven years and had invited her to their 6-year-old daughter’s birthday party last year.
When the woman heard that Mary Fratantonio was dead, she said, “My stomach just turned … I feel bad for both of them.”
Another neighbor, who also asked to remain anonymous, described Christopher Frantantonio as “eccentric” and said he once asked him why he dropped the employees of his flooring company off down the road.
“He said, ‘My wife doesn’t approve of the people who work for me,’ ” the man said.