Helicopter joins search for yellow fuel can in West Brookfield slayings
Investigators are still scouring the state for a yellow fuel can they believe is connected to the murders of a West Brookfield woman and her three children, using a helicopter yesterday to scan the area around their house and venturing as far as East Boston on a tip that didn’t pan out.
The Worcester district attorney’s office has not identified a suspect in the March 2 killings of Sara Bermudez, 38, and her children Madison, 8, James, 6, and Michael, 2, but DA Joseph D. Early Jr. told reporters last weekend that police were searching for a plastic yellow fuel can that was missing from the family’s Old Warren Road home.
Early did not say how the can was connected to the murders, but a law enforcement source told the Herald the victims’ bodies had evidence of burns.
Police have called for residents in West Brookfield and on the Route 9 corridor who have home surveillance cameras or dashboard-mountedcameras to get in touch with officials. And yesterday, the State Police Air Wing helicopter made “reconnaissance flights” over West Brookfield to search for the diesel can, according to a tweet from the West Brookfield Police Department.
Police also responded to a tip in East Boston yesterday after a man saw a discarded yellow fuel can in a parking lot off of Bennington Street, under the Route 1A overpass. But the can was metal, not plastic.
Transit and state police monitored the site and briefly taped off the sidewalk around the can, but ultimately said it was not part of the investigation.
J.P. Brant, an employee at the parking lot, said the area under the overpass is home to numerous discarded items and trash.
“You come here, there’s always something new,” he said.