Serial child rapist Wayne Chapman dies at age 73
Wayne Chapman is dead, ending a nightmare sex offender story.
He goes to his grave having admitted to molesting up to 100 boys across multiple states. He was also the lone person of interest in the disappearance of 10-year-old Andy Puglisi of Lawrence in 1976.
“Hopefully there’s more justice on the other side than there was here,” said Puglisi’s childhood friend Melanie McLaughlin, who was at the neighborhood pool the day Andy went missing.
“Chapman was the last one seen leaving the pool with Andy, multiple witnesses said,” McLaughlin told the Herald Thursday. “There’s hundreds of crimes he got away with. He got away with my 10-yearold friend. … I’m sad and angry today.”
Connecticut State Police confirmed “next of kin” have been informed of Chapman’s death. He was 73.
Chapman’s lawyer Eric Tennen said Chapman died in a Connecticut nursing home Wednesday.
“He got to a point where he couldn’t harm anyone,” Tennen said, stressing he defended Chapman’s appeals to stop being civilly committed but not his previous crimes. “The things he’s done were horrible acts and he harmed a lot of people.”
A series of stories by the Herald in 2019 told of Chapman’s release from prison after being civilly committed for raping two other boys in Lawrence. He served time for those crimes — but was set free to spend his last days on the outside after two state-appointed examiners under contract for the Department of Correction ruled he was too frail to reoffend.
One of those victims who helped put Chapman behind bars said the news is a “relief.”
“One less person like that out in the world,” said Bob, whose last name is being withheld because he was just 11 when Chapman raped him. “It’s awkward to feel happy, but it is a relief.”
Bob added the authorities treated him with kindness all those years ago, but pedophiles like Chapman, he added, should never get out of jail once convicted.
“The penalties they impose aren’t enough,” he added. “Why was he out on the street? You don’t fix that type of person.”
Attorney Wendy Murphy, an advocate for women and children, said Chapman’s death makes the world safer.
“(Expletive) him,” she said. “For the first time, I won’t be afraid of any children near him.”
She added that, unfortunately, Chapman didn’t confess to any murders.
“The least he could have done is confess, especially about Andy,” Murphy said. “It’s not surprising he did nothing. He was selfish in the end as he was throughout all his life.”
Chapman’s story, spelled out in shocking detail in past prison reports, tells of a predator who terrorized young boys all over the east. Records state:
■ He tortured cats as a youth, “locking them in boxes and leaving them to starve” in the woods.
■ Made advances on an 11-yearold stepson.
■ Promised a paper route to a 12year-old boy in Pennsylvania as a ruse to lure him into the woods and molest him.
■ Once fantasized about “fondling and killing a kid.”
■ Carried a receipt for “the purchase of a boys wallet,” according to an entry dated Feb. 24.
■ Prison staff saying he has “his own agenda” and is capable of getting around.
■ An entry from 2015 states Chapman is “still capable of sexual functioning.”
■ In the 1970s, at the height of his attacks on “50-100” boys, he said: “I need help because I cannot help myself from doing these things.”