Mashpee Man, Girlfriend Charged With Father's Murder
MASHPEE (CBS) – A Mashpee man and his girlfriend are now charged with the murder of his father.
Investigators say Eli Perry, 37, and Paige Malone, 30, killed Eli's father Raymond, 64, late last year.
Raymond Perry was reported missing December 1, but prosecutors said he had not been seen since November 26.
His body was found December 18 in the woods by the Plymouth-Carver town line. He had suffered "blunt force trauma to the head" and "cutting wounds to the neck," according to investigators.
Eli was arrested on December 6 on a traffic violation in Plymouth. He has been in custody at the Plymouth House of Correction and was served an arrest warrant there Tuesday night.
Police also arrested Malone Tuesday in Marshfield.
Cape and Island District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said both are charged with murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and illegal disposal of a human body.
Malone was arraigned in Falmouth District Court Wednesday where she pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail.
Prosecutors detailed that upon a warranted search of Raymond Perry's home, red stains matching Raymond's blood were found, along with areas of new paint and flooring.
Similar stains were also found in the bed of a pickup truck that is seen, in surveillance video from a neighbor, going to and from Raymond's house on November 26, they added.
When Malone was first questioned by police after Eli's traffic stop, she admitted to being in the pickup truck in question the night Raymond was last seen.
Prosecutors said other warranted surveillance videos and "cell site location data" pegged Perry, Malone, and the pickup truck at a Falmouth gas station and eventually at a cranberry bog in Plymouth. When investigators visited the bog area mid-December, Raymond's remains were found under a pile of mulch.
"The cell site locator information put the phones that belonged to both defendants in the area where the body was recovered," said Barnstable County District Attorney Michael O'Keefe.
Along with his body, a cell phone, a pillow and a rug that matched those in Raymond's home, a knife with Raymond's DNA on it, and the same type of Starbuck's drink bottle that Malone was seen purchasing from a gas station were buried in the wooded area, according to prosecutors.
"You can hear the Commonwealth really has no concrete evidence whatsoever tying my client to the deceased. No fingerprints, no DNA, nothing at all," responded Malone's attorney in court.
He added, "My client has drug problems...but she's not a murderer."
Perry will be arraigned Thursday.
The motive for the murder is still unclear.
