Murder suspect found dead in Charlestown woods
CHARLESTOWN — The lone suspect in the fatal shooting Saturday of an East Providence woman in a North Attleboro parking lot was found dead of suicide in a nature preserve on Sunday, a Massachusetts prosecutor confirmed.
The body of Steven Fregeolle, 32, of Johnston, was found by a Narragansett police K-9 team at about 6:30 p.m. in the Francis C. Carter Memorial Preserve in Charlestown. Multiple police departments searched all afternoon on Sunday, after a Charlestown patrol officer, alerted by North Attleboro police to be on the lookout for the suspect's car, found it in the preserve's parking lot Sunday morning. The car was towed early Sunday evening.
The suspect in last night’s homicide in North Attleboro has been found deceased—the victim of an apparent suicide—in a nature preserve in Charlestown, RI. We would like to thank our law enforcement partners in Rhode Island for their assistance in this tragic case.
— Bristol DA (@BristolDA) June 23, 2019
Fregeolle was being sought by the Bristol County District Attorney's Office and North Attleboro police since the shooting at 6 p.m. Saturday of Brandi Berg, 37, of Riverside, at the Fashion Crossing Plaza on Route 1 in North Attleboro. Unresponsive in her car when help arrived, Berg was taken to Rhode Island Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Fregeolle had been the only suspect in the investigation, the prosecutor's news release said Sunday night.
The Carter Preserve, owned by the Nature Conservancy, is 841 acres in rural Charlestown. An entrance on Route 112 is not far from the Meadow Brook Inn, a banquet hall that police were using as a staging area. The Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency had sent its RV command center.
Route 112 was blocked from Charlestown Elementary, at Old Shannock Road, to Route 2. Local traffic was allowed in.
Lt. Jay Gibbs of the Rhode Island State Police, Hope Valley barracks, told reporters — who were allowed no further than the school parking lot — that besides state and Charlestown police, searchers included police officers from Richmond, Hopkinton, Narragansett, Westerly, the state Department of Environmental Management, Tribal police and Amtrak. A helicopter from the Massachusetts State Police joined the search just before 6 p.m.
Gibbs was authorized to say only that the search was nearly concluded. Confirmation that a body was found had to come from the Bristol County prosecutor.
At about 7:45 p.m., a Rhode Island Medical Examiner's vehicle passed the school on its way to the preserve.
A 7:50 p.m. tweet by the office of Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III announced that the suspect "has been found deceased — the victim of an apparent suicide — in a nature preserve in Charlestown, RI. We would like to thank our law enforcement partners in Rhode Island for their assistance in this tragic case."
Hours earlier, investigators had sought the public's assistance in finding Fregeolle, who has connections in Johnston and Exeter, Quinn said. People were cautioned against confronting or trying to detain him.
The investigation is continuing, the final news release said.
