WOBURN, Mass. — A man charged with killing his wife, two young children and mother-in-law left behind notes in their suburban Boston home admitting to the savage, bloody slayings, authorities said Thursday.
Thomas Mortimer IV, 43, was captured Thursday by police in northwestern Massachusetts hours after he was charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
The bodies of his wife, Laura Stone Mortimer, a 41-year-old economist; their 4-year-old son, Thomas Mortimer V, who was known as Finn; their 2-year-old daughter, Charlotte; and his wife’s 64-year-old mother, Ellen Stone, were found Wednesday at their in home in Winchester, an upper-middle-class community north of Boston.
There were signs of attempted suicide at the home, and two identical letters, thought to have been written by Mortimer, were left behind, said District Attorney Gerry Leone.
“I did these horrible things. What I’ve done was extremely selfish and cowardly. I murdered my family,” the letters read.
Leone said the slayings followed a fight and “ongoing marital discord.”
All the victims appeared to have been killed by blunt trauma with sharp objects, he said.
The discovery of the bodies prompted a search for Mortimer, with police issuing alerts about his vehicle on electronic signs across the state. A father and son spotted his sport utility vehicle late Thursday morning in Montague and called police. He was captured after trying to flee in Bernardston, about 100 miles from Boston.
Leone said the exact time of the slayings was still being determined but appeared to be sometime between late Monday and early Tuesday.
Leone said Laura Mortimer’s sister, Debra Stone, tried to call her Tuesday, but instead Thomas Mortimer answered her cellphone, which was highly unusual. Mortimer told Stone, “It’s going to be a while before she can get back to you,” Leone said.
Mortimer had recently landed a job at M&R Consultants Corp., a Burlington technology consulting firm, after several months of unemployment, said Anil Shah, M&R president. Mortimer was a hard worker who had been making progress at his job since getting hired about a month and a half ago, Shah said.
“He was very professional, very nice guy . . . always very positive,” Shah said.
