Published: March 24, 2008 11:26 pm
Suspected strangler tells jury act was consensual By Julie Manganis
Staff writer
HAMILTON — A man accused of trying to strangle to death an Appaloosa Way woman last June admitted to jurors yesterday that he was drunk, selfish and callous — but not an attempted murderer.
Instead, John Carey told jurors yesterday, he had one thing on his mind after a day of drinking and golf: a quick sexual tryst with his former neighbor, Rosemary Diskin.
And, he testified, Diskin went along with it — until her 12-year-old son walked in on them.
Carey, 48, of Braintree, is on trial in Newburyport Superior Court, charged with attempted murder, home invasion, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon — a tan necktie he admits he wrapped around her throat on the night of June 6. He is being held without bail in Middleton Jail.
Diskin told police that Carey showed up at her home, tricked his way inside with a story about meeting her husband for drinks, then suddenly pulled out a cord and began strangling her.
She said she yelled for her son to help her, instructing him to take a knife and stab her assailant, who then let her go and fled into the night.
Yesterday, Carey told jurors that he doesn't recall getting stabbed — only that he saw the boy walk into the kitchen, their eyes meeting for a moment, before he looked away and then walked out, embarrassed.
Carey admitted that for many years he has been interested in the sexual practice of asphyxia, in which a person engaged in sexual activity is deprived of oxygen, which participants claim heightens the pleasure. He also admitted that he was a paying member of a club called "Necrobabes" and once caused a sexual partner to pass out.
He also testified he and Diskin had engaged in two prior sexual encounters, including one in which he put his hands around her throat — something Diskin said is untrue.
During the incident on June 6, Carey said, Diskin, who had been holding onto a chair, slipped. Rather than let go of the tie or stop her from falling, Carey admitted he held on, "pulling back ... like you would on a dog's lead," because he didn't want to stop.
Prosecutor Kim Faitella asked Carey whether they had a signal if someone felt like they were in danger. Carey said no.
"They just have to trust your judgment?" Faitella asked.
"That's right," Carey said.
Carey also admitted that he had once downloaded an article about a killer who won a new trial with evidence about erotic strangulation.
Carey was also forced to admit that he had brought the necktie with him that night, contradicting his earlier account to police.
After a series of questions about other inconsistencies, Carey smiled. When the prosecutor asked what he found funny, Carey said, "Your questions seem kind of nitpicky."
Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for this morning.
Posted by: DeputyFife
Published: March 25, 2008 08:58 pm ShareThisPrintThis
Jury weighs facts in Hamilton strangling case
By Julie Manganis
Staff writer
HAMILTON — Jurors in the trial of a South Shore man charged with attempted murder in the strangulation of a Hamilton woman last June began deliberating yesterday, deciding between two very different theories.
Depending on which theory the jury accepts — was it a cold-blooded attempt at murder or a bizarre sexual fetish being acted out by two consenting adults — John Carey could face more than 50 years in state prison.
"The defendant attempted to turn his fantasy into reality, and it became Rosemary Diskin's worst nightmare," prosecutor Kim Faitella told jurors yesterday during closing arguments in Newburyport Superior Court. She pointed to more than 400 graphic images on Carey's computer, of women in various stages of strangulation — and death.
"Those are what was in his mind when he drove to Rosemary Diskin's house on June 6, 2007," the prosecutor said.
There is no dispute that Carey, who is charged with attempted murder, home invasion, and multiple counts of assault and battery, went to the Diskin home that night, argued his lawyer, Kirk Bransfield. But he went for a very different purpose, the lawyer said.
"He didn't go into this house to hurt anybody," Bransfield argued. "He went there to have sexual relations with Rosemary Diskin. He did not go there to kill Rosemary Diskin."
Bransfield called the state's suggested motive "far-fetched" and said that while Carey's sexual proclivities "may be disgusting," they are not illegal.
"The only thing the commonwealth has proved is that he had an odd sexual proclivity."
But that, countered Faitella, was exactly what drove Carey, 48, of Braintree, to Diskin's Appaloosa Way home that night, as she cooked a dish for a school event her son was attending.
"He was going to fulfill his ultimate sexual gratification," Faitella argued, pointing to Carey's membership in a club called "Necrobabes" and his Internet searches for information about asphyxia.
And even as Diskin's young son came into the kitchen, he wasn't going to let go of what he had, Faitella said.
Bransfield reminded jurors that Diskin let Carey into the home that night — though Faitella argued that if Carey came there with the intent to harm her she could not be considered to have consented to him coming inside.
He also cited inconsistencies in the accounts offered by Diskin and her son, who was 12 at the time. For example, Diskin said she was grabbed while facing Carey, the necktie placed around her neck and twisted in front.
Her son testified that he saw Carey behind his mother, who was bent down with Carey straddling her.
Diskin also said she yelled to her son to grab a knife and stab Carey. Her son said he just remembers his mother yelling, and then he went to get the knife himself.
And Diskin told police that night that her son had kicked and punched Carey — something she couldn't have actually seen if she was facing the opposite direction, Bransfield said.
While prosecutors do not have to prove a motive, Faitella suggested that Carey chose Diskin because he knew he could get into her house.
And Faitella suggested that after he left and learned that police were looking for him, he deliberately chose not to go home that night, instead staying with friends.
Bransfield, meanwhile, also challenged the Diskins' assertion that their marriage was not in trouble at the time — Tim Diskin had been living in Arlington at the time, the lawyer said.
"They lived essentially separate lives," Bransfield argued. "They're telling you their relationship is solid so there's no reason for Rosemary Diskin to be seeking comfort or sexual relations outside the marital bed."
Posted by: DeputyFife
Published: March 26, 2008 11:42 pm ShareThisPrintThis
Guilty verdict in Hamilton necktie choking case By Julie Manganis Staff writer
HAMILTON — A South Shore man has been found guilty of attempted murder in the choking of a Hamilton woman with a necktie last June.
A Newburyport Superior Court jury found John Carey guilty of four of the five charges against him, including home invasion, assault and battery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon — the necktie prosecutors said he used to choke the victim, Rosemary Diskin.
The jury cleared Carey of one count of assault and battery.
He could face more than 50 years in prison when he is sentenced today by Judge Richard Welch.
In convicting Carey, 48, a former Gloucester resident who now lives in Braintree, the jury rejected his claim that he went to Diskin's home for a sexual liaison, and instead agreed with prosecutor Kim Faitella that Carey was there to act out his "ultimate sexual fantasy."
That fantasy, Faitella said, involved strangling — something depicted in hundreds of images found on his computer. Carey admitted on the stand that he is aroused by the practice of asphyxiation during sexual intercourse.
Carey and Diskin, 56, were former neighbors and acquaintances, but Diskin was adamant that she and Carey were not having a relationship, as Carey had claimed.
She said that Carey showed up at her Appaloosa Way home late on the night of June 6, claiming to have plans with her husband, who was not home. That's something Carey knew before he arrived because he had just called Tim Diskin, authorities said.
When Carey arrived, she said, they had a brief conversation — and then he pulled out a cord and put it around her neck. As the two struggled, she testified, her son heard the commotion and came downstairs.
She said she yelled to the boy to get a knife and stab Carey. The boy tried, but the knife broke.
Carey then fled. Diskin ran to her neighbor's home, while her son ran to a friend's home.
Carey showed up at the Hamilton Police Department the following morning and insisted that he and Diskin had been engaging in consensual activity.
Jurors deliberated for about 10 hours over two days before reaching their verdict late yesterday afternoon.
Carey has been held without bail since his arrest last June
Posted by: DeputyFife
Published: March 28, 2008 12:31 am ShareThisPrintThis
Hamilton strangler gets 20 years: Victim says Carey terrorized her family By Julie Manganis Staff writer
HAMILTON — A man convicted of trying to strangle a Hamilton woman to death last year was sent to prison for 20 years yesterday by a judge who told John Carey that "nobody in their home should ever be subjected to this kind of treatment."
"No 12-year-old should ever have to come into a room and have to save his mother," Judge Richard Welch told Carey, 48, of Braintree, who was convicted by a Newburyport Superior Court jury Wednesdayof attempted murder, home invasion, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and assault and battery.
"Human beings need a place to be safe, and that's what a home is for," Welch said.
But Rosemary Diskin no longer feels safe and secure in her Appaloosa Way home, and neither does her son, not since the night of June 6, when Carey showed up at their home.
Carey, a former neighbor, told Diskin he was there to meet her husband, Tim, for a drink. But Carey had already called Tim Diskin and knew he wasn't at the home that night.
Once inside, Carey and Rosemary Diskin talked briefly. Diskin said Carey suddenly pulled out a cord and put it around her neck, twisting it hard against her throat.
As she struggled, she said, Carey dragged her through the kitchen.
Her son said he heard the commotion and came downstairs, to find his mother partly on the floor, Carey straddling her with a necktie around her throat. He tried to stab Carey with a kitchen knife, but it broke.
As the little boy beat his fists on Carey's back, Carey continued holding on for a few more moments before letting go, then running out.
Outside, he dropped part of the tie, which had both his and Diskin's DNA on it. That became a crucial piece of evidence against him.
Prosecutor Kim Faitella argued to jurors that Carey was attempting to act out his ultimate sexual fantasy of strangling a woman to death — a scenario depicted in hundreds of images found on his computer after his arrest.
For months, Carey claimed that the act was consensual, that the two had been having an affair and that the strangulation was part of their sex play.
But yesterday, he tearfully apologized to Diskin, her husband and their son, admitting that he had violated the trust of his former neighbors.
"I did wrong," Carey told the Diskins, seated together in court. He admitted that he had violated the trust of a couple he had known for 15 years. "There's nothing I can say to Rosemary and (her son) that's going to make them feel any better. I can only apologize to them."
Carey — who just three days earlier had taken the stand to insist that what he had done was consensual — said yesterday that he now prays for the family.
"I was walking in the dark for many years. I walk in the light now," Carey said.
Rosemary Diskin, in a victim-impact statement, blasted Carey as "an evil, horrible, dangerous, twisted man" who had robbed her entire family of their sense of security.
"John Carey has shown no remorse at all, and his fabricated stories are disgusting and sick," Diskin said. "I would not be alive today if it weren't for (my son). John Carey did not stop strangling me after my son appeared in the kitchen, so what do you think he was planning to do after he murdered me? John Carey was going to strangle me to death, and it's a horrible, horrible feeling to think of what he would have done after that."
She said her son is still terrified of being alone in the house. Just this week, when he returned home from school before Diskin had arrived home from the courthouse, she said, her son locked himself in his room.
"You've done an unbelievable number on my son," Diskin said to Carey.
Diskin said she still suffers neck pain and post-traumatic stress, and has constant nightmares.
The incident also affected her husband, her sisters and her mother, who now has trouble sleeping, Diskin said.
And she feared the reaction of others in her small community when Carey's defense was first reported. "I had the dreadful fear that when people saw me they would think that I had some relationship with him or shared his sick perversions.
"It was horrifying what John Carey did to me, and I don't think I'll ever completely recover or understand why he chose me," Diskin said.
Faitella had asked for a slightly longer term of 20 to 25 years in prison, while Carey's lawyer, Kirk Bransfield, sought a term of eight to 10 years.
Welch's sentence of 20 years for the home invasion, and a concurrent 18 to 20 years for attempted murder, will be followed by five years of probation on the assault and battery counts. He was also ordered to take part in sex offender treatment — although none of the charges he was convicted of will require him to register as a sex offender — and substance abuse treatment.
Bransfield said yesterday he has filed a notice of appeal in the case.
Welch, who said Carey had "evil in his heart" on that night, hoped the sentence reflected the "incalculable" harm Carey caused to the Diskin family.
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