‘WE’RE NOT DONE FIGHTING’
SJC decision to free child rapist blasted
Serial child rapist Wayne W. Chapman can be let out of prison, a single Supreme Judicial Court justice ruled yesterday in a decision that a lawyer for four victims said she is refusing to accept.
“We’re not done fighting,” said Wendy Murphy, who filed an emergency injunction to put the case before the entire sevenmember SJC. She said Chapman can’t be released until that appeal is heard.
In yesterday’s ruling, Justice Scott L. Kafker said a petition to keep Chapman civilly committed “presents no substantial claim of violation of substantive rights.”
“The petitioners, victims of Chapman’s horrible crimes, are understandably upset and frightened by the possibility of Chapman’s release,” he added, but they “failed to provide any legal authority granting them standing or a private cause of action as it relates to Chapman’s release.”
The justice said the two psychologists who recently examined the Level 3 sex offender followed “standard practice” in deciding Chapman can walk.
Chapman’s lawyer, Eric Tennen, told the Herald his 70-yearold client will stay at MCI-Shirley temporarily until he can find a nursing home setting. But, he added, Murphy’s appeal won’t slow that search.
“He will register as a sex offender, and his address will be public,” Tennen added. “A lot of people think the guy who’s getting out is the same as the guy who went in. But the guy who’s getting out is old and sick. He can barely walk. It’s really hard to fake all that stuff.”
But Murphy said Chapman — originally jailed for raping two boys in Lawrence in 1977 and civilly committed since then — is still fixated on youngsters.
“He received a little boy’s wallet in the mail on the virtual eve of his release, but we’re supposed to believe he’s safe to live among us?” she asked at a press conference in Boston yesterday.
At her side was one of Chapman’s victims from 1977.
The man, now 54, who went by the name Steve, said Chapman’s horrific attack gave him a life sentence of nightmares.
“I was a happy-go-lucky boy growing up in Lawrence,” he said. “That day I was introduced to fear, pain, anger, resentment, guilt and shame.
“My understanding is he’d never see the light of day again,” Steve added.
Chapman has also been eyed in the disappearance of 10-year-old Angelo “Andy” Puglisi, last seen at a Lawrence pool in 1976, and may have molested up to 100 boys in three states.
The two prison-contracted psychologists ruled Chapman is too old to reoffend, has done his time and should be let out of jail.
The Herald reported last week that Chapman had “fully exposed” himself to a prison nurse March 4, according to an unredacted examiner’s report.
Gov. Charlie Baker’s office said it can’t stop Chapman’s release but is writing a bill to change the law.
Elizabeth Guyton, Baker’s communications director, said: “The administration does not support the release of Mr. Chapman and plans to file legislation to increase penalties and improve court proceedings for sexually dangerous persons.”