SUSPECT ‘A CREEPY GUY’
Slay arrest doesn’t surprise neighbors
Longtime Kingston residents remember Michael Arthur Hand — the fugitive arrested in North Carolina in connection with the 1986 cold case murder of Tracy Gilpin — as the neighborhood oddball, a strange man who fired guns in his yard, carved tombstones in his driveway and kept dogs trapped in the basement of his dilapidated house.
“He was definitely a creepy guy,” said Brian Whidden, 50, who lived down the street from Hand for several years.
Hand, 61, was arrested in Troutman, N.C., in connection with the slaying of 15-year-old Tracy Gilpin, whose body was found in Myles Standish Park in October 1986.
Among her survivors was her heartbroken 16-yearold sister, Kerry Gilpin, who grew up to become the current head of the Massachusetts State Police.
Tracy Gilpin’s murder had remained a mystery until Friday, when state troopers arrested Hand and charged him as a fugitive from justice based on a warrant for his arrest in the homicide.
A spokesperson for Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said Hand waived rendition in North Carolina yesterday and will be brought back to Massachusetts, where he will be arraigned in Plymouth District Court.
Hand grew up in Kingston, where his Brookdale Street neighbors described him as “a little off.”
“Of course there’s a shock factor,” said Hand’s longtime neighbor Christine Nava, 52.
“But I was not overly surprised, no.”
Nava and her late husband bought Hand’s property, which she said was in a state of horrid disrepair.
“We had to gut it; it was a mess,” Nava said. “There was animal feces; it was just gross.”
Another neighbor, Rob Arrowsmith, said the Nava family brought him on to help with the renovation. Arrowsmith, 47, owns a local construction company and grew up with Hand.
“He was one of those guys that you say hi to and go about your business,” he said.
He remembers Hand as a big guy with Coke-bottle glasses, and said he started a business that involved carving tombstones and monuments in his driveway.
Upon inspecting the house for the Navas, Arrowsmith and his father suggested the couple bring in a professional demolition crew to tear apart the filthy interior of the home, which he called “nasty.”
“There was a grate installed in the living room floor. A steel grate; it was creepy,” Arrowsmith said.
Neighbors said that Hand kept several dogs on the property at a time.
“It looked like dogs had been kept in the basement for long periods of time,” Arrowsmith said.
“The dogs had actually gotten up on things and gnawed off large portions of floor joist, had tried to eat their way out of the basement.”
Nava said that while she hadn’t connected the Gilpin slaying to their old neighbor, the connection made sense.
“He was an unusual guy,” said Nava, who recalled that he would often use his yard for target practice, shooting guns.
“He used to walk up the street with a gun, in broad daylight,” she said.
The neighborhood, Whidden said, was relieved when Hand finally moved out of Kingston in 2007.