This week, the Boston Globe and HBO premiered a series on one of the most notorious crimes in Boston history: The October 1989 murder of Carol DiMaiti Stuart by her husband Charles, who allegedly covered up his actions by shooting himself and claiming a fictitious Black man did it. The horrific crime rocked the city for weeks as police relentlessly shook down the Black community, Black men in particular, in search of the imaginary assailant.
Caught up in that manhunt was William Bennett, a Black man implicated by his nephew and another youth who shortly afterward recanted their story. But by then, Bennett’s name and photo were widely disseminated by media in Boston and beyond as the likely killer. He remained under suspicion until Jan. 4, 1990, when Stuart jumped of the Tobin Bridge in a likely suicide a day after his brother Matthew told authorities the true story behind the plot.
We commend HBO and the Globe, and in particular columnist Adrian Walker, for revisiting the story that many would rather forget as another stain on Boston’s troubled racial past. But it is precisely because it is painful that it must be remembered, and to prevent such a horrendous act from ever happening again.
The Globe-HBO collaboration is not the final word, however, nor as we can gleen from the early installments, is it a complete one. A key element never fully reported in white-owned media is the story from William Bennett himself, which he gave to the Banner exclusively in 1993 in an interview with then-managing editor Robin Washington. In it, Bennett — who was incarcerated for two unrelated robberies he was convicted of shortly following the Stuart case — said that prosecutors used the sane fabricated evidence from Stuart’s concocted accusation to pin the robbery cases on him. Except for the Banner, his contentions fell on deaf ears. (Bennett in 2017 gave one more interview to WBZ-TV, but did not elaborate on the robbery case. That report said he served 12 years and was released in 2002).
The Globe/HBO series reports that Bennett, now 73, is afflicted with dementia and was not available to be interviewed by them. It’s not certain he would have granted one regardless of his health. In the 1993 Banner interview, he vowed never to speak with the Boston Herald or the Globe, which long after Stuart’s apparent suicide and Bennett’s complete exoneration published a column by then-Globe staffer Mike Barnicle making the specious suggestion that Bennett and Charles Stuart knew each other after all.
The Stuart Case and the hoax it perpetrated maligning the entire Black community must never be forgotten or repeated.
Likewise, the role of the Black press in telling the stories that mainstream media either forget or are perpetually unaware of cannot be understated. The Banner is honored and proud to be part of that tradition, and rededicates itself to that invaluable mission, and the truth it brings to all of society.
Here is William Bennett’s interview with the Banner from 1993:
