BYFIELD, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Police shot and killed a suspect at a gas station in a small North Shore town Sunday night following a multi-state police chase.
Now, authorities say the suspect, 31-year-old Thomas Murray, was also involved in a string of carjackings over the weekend.
Around 5 p.m. Sunday, Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett's office said in a release, Murray allegedly held up the Tully BMW dealership in Nashua, New Hampshire, before stabbing an employee and driving off in a stolen BMW.
That employee suffered minor injuries. Authorities were able to track the stolen BMW using an onboard location system.
About an hour later, Newbury and Massachusetts State Police spotted the stolen BMW at A.L. Prime gas station on Central Street in Byfield, and used their cruisers to box Murray in.
Blodgett said Murray rammed the State Police cruiser in an attempt to get away, and one or more of the responding officers fired at him.
"The officers exited their cruisers, asked the suspect to get out of the car," Blodgett said. "A weapon was discharged by an officer or more than one officer, that is yet to be determined."
Murray was rushed to Anna Jacques Hospital in Newburyport, where he was pronounced dead.
The gas station in Byfield where Murray was shot. (Kevin Coleman/WBZ NewsRadio)
Monday morning, Blodgett's office said investigators had linked Murray to at least two other carjackings—and possibly a third—throughout Massachusetts over the long weekend.
The first one occurred around 3:45 p.m. Saturday on Route 114 in North Andover. Murray allegedly forced a woman and her five-year-old child out of an Audi as the driver, the woman's husband, was inside a Starbucks. Blodgett's office said that car led police on a chase in Canton around 6:30 a.m. Sunday, and was found later in Lexington.
The second carjacking happened around 3 p.m. Sunday in Lowell, when Murray allegedly forced an elderly woman out of her Subaru Legacy. Blodgett's office said the woman did not suffer serious injuries, and that the Legacy was the car Murray drove to the BMW dealership.
As for the potential third carjacking, Blodgett's office said investigators were trying to find out if Murray was "potentially connected to a theft of a vehicle in Boston Saturday," but did not say when and where that alleged theft took place.
Monday morning, residents in Byfield told WBZ NewsRadio's Kevin Coleman they were still in shock.
"It's a very quiet town, and it really never happens here, so it's very surprising," said one man.
"It's scary how people don't care," said another man pumping gas at the station. "They just do what they want, and when the police finally catch them, they get what they deserve sometimes, don't they?"
WBZ NewsRadio's Kevin Coleman (@KevinColemanWBZ) reports
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