05-17-2011, 12:54 PM
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 http://www.bostonherald.com
Daniel Kerrigan could keep a secret.
The 70-year-old father of Olympic silver-medalist ice skater Nancy Kerrigan wasn’t the “type to tell you anything,” testified neighbor Douglas Meahal.
He didn’t tell his family that he had heart disease, clogged arteries, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, testified his sister Jane Bergeron.
“Daniel Kerrigan was a very, very sick man. No one knew it. Maybe he knew it, but he didn’t share it with anyone,” defense attorney Janice Bassil said.
And most people didn’t know that behind the manicured lawn and neat country kitchen, his son Mark was living in the basement, drinking Scotch and spitting chewing tobacco in Poland Springs bottles.
Until now.
Prosecutors say that during an argument Jan. 24, 2010, Mark Kerrigan grabbed his father by the throat so hard he crushed the cartilage in the left side of his larynx, and that pushing and shoving caused Daniel to go into cardiac dysrhythmia and die on the kitchen floor of his Stoneham Cape.
“Daniel Kerrigan spent the last few minutes of his conscious life fighting off his drunk 45-year-old son,” said Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Keeley in her opening statements at Middlesex Superior Court yesterday.
Team Kerrigan — sitting squarely behind the defendant — remained stoic. His sister Nancy comforted their mother Brenda, who dabbed at her eyes. Nancy’s husband Jerry Solomon, Dan’s sister Jane and a dozen or more family and friends were there, too, all supporting Mark and bracing themselves for what came next.
The 911 call was played: “(Expletive) piece of (expletive),” Mark screams in the background as his mother, Brenda says,“Get away from him.”
“Is he breathing?” Brenda cries.
“How the hell should I know?” Mark yells.
The family sat through testimony from Stoneham police officer Jonathan Mahoney, who told the court it took three officers to subdue the younger Kerrigan, who had retreated to the basement to hide his bottle of Scotch.
They listened as paramedic Joseph Amello described intubating Daniel and how his ribs were broken after they attempted CPR. They bowed their heads when Amello recalled a drunken Mark at the police station, a Mark who vomited on the floor and wouldn’t follow simple commands.
“Oh my God,” Brenda cries in the emergency call. “I hope he’s not dead.”
That night didn’t just end Daniel Kerrigan’s life. Anyone sitting in the Woburn courtroom yesterday knew it also destroyed the perfect family portrait he had worked so hard to present to the world.
Daniel Kerrigan could keep a secret.
The 70-year-old father of Olympic silver-medalist ice skater Nancy Kerrigan wasn’t the “type to tell you anything,” testified neighbor Douglas Meahal.
He didn’t tell his family that he had heart disease, clogged arteries, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, testified his sister Jane Bergeron.
“Daniel Kerrigan was a very, very sick man. No one knew it. Maybe he knew it, but he didn’t share it with anyone,” defense attorney Janice Bassil said.
And most people didn’t know that behind the manicured lawn and neat country kitchen, his son Mark was living in the basement, drinking Scotch and spitting chewing tobacco in Poland Springs bottles.
Until now.
Prosecutors say that during an argument Jan. 24, 2010, Mark Kerrigan grabbed his father by the throat so hard he crushed the cartilage in the left side of his larynx, and that pushing and shoving caused Daniel to go into cardiac dysrhythmia and die on the kitchen floor of his Stoneham Cape.
“Daniel Kerrigan spent the last few minutes of his conscious life fighting off his drunk 45-year-old son,” said Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Keeley in her opening statements at Middlesex Superior Court yesterday.
Team Kerrigan — sitting squarely behind the defendant — remained stoic. His sister Nancy comforted their mother Brenda, who dabbed at her eyes. Nancy’s husband Jerry Solomon, Dan’s sister Jane and a dozen or more family and friends were there, too, all supporting Mark and bracing themselves for what came next.
The 911 call was played: “(Expletive) piece of (expletive),” Mark screams in the background as his mother, Brenda says,“Get away from him.”
“Is he breathing?” Brenda cries.
“How the hell should I know?” Mark yells.
The family sat through testimony from Stoneham police officer Jonathan Mahoney, who told the court it took three officers to subdue the younger Kerrigan, who had retreated to the basement to hide his bottle of Scotch.
They listened as paramedic Joseph Amello described intubating Daniel and how his ribs were broken after they attempted CPR. They bowed their heads when Amello recalled a drunken Mark at the police station, a Mark who vomited on the floor and wouldn’t follow simple commands.
“Oh my God,” Brenda cries in the emergency call. “I hope he’s not dead.”
That night didn’t just end Daniel Kerrigan’s life. Anyone sitting in the Woburn courtroom yesterday knew it also destroyed the perfect family portrait he had worked so hard to present to the world.