WOBURN, Mass. — A convicted killer who is currently behind bars has been indicted on murder charges in connection with a baseball bat beating death in Lowell and a drug overdose death in Cambridge, authorities announced Tuesday.
Kevin J. Lino, 38, a former resident of Lowell, is facing two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of 54-year-old Gary A. Melanson in 2010 and 30-year-old Douglas Leon Clarke in 2012, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said during a news conference at her Woburn office.
Lino is currently serving a life sentence in Suffolk County for beating a man to death in Boston and a 40-year sentence for the murder of a homeless man in Montana, according to Ryan.
Melanson was beaten to death with an aluminum baseball bat under the Rogers Street Bridge in Lowell, according to Ryan. His body was found sprawled over a collapsed tent, with numerous visible wounds, on Nov. 29, 2010.
An autopsy later revealed Melanson had suffered blunt impact injuries to his head, torso, and extremities, including fractured ribs, a collapsed lung, and a fracture of his left arm.
Two years later, on August 2, 2012, Clarke was found unconscious in the area of 975 Memorial Drive in Cambridge on the bank of the Charles River, according to Ryan.
A toxicological examination of Clarke’s blood revealed the presence of a substantial concentration of morphine, as well as codeine, ethanol, and gabapentin.
Melanson’s manner of death was initially ruled “undetermined,” while Clarke’s manner of death was labeled an “accident.”
State police detectives learned of Lino’s possible involvement in the two homicides in 2018 while working on an unrelated investigation.
“The Middlesex District Attorney’s Cold Case Unit, in collaboration with state and local police, were subsequently able to establish probable cause that Kevin J. Lino, then 23 years old, and Gary Melanson were both unhoused and staying in the same area near the Rogers Street Bridge when the defendant allegedly attacked Gary Melanson because he continued to light fires to warm himself after Lino had warned him not to do so,” Ryan said.
Ryan continued, “Evidence also determined that the defendant, then 25 years old, poisoned Douglas Leon Clarke by allegedly intentionally giving him a quantity of heroin of sufficient strength to cause a fatal overdose. At the time of the murder, the defendant and the victim were both part of a group of unhoused individuals who gathered by the Harvard Square MBTA station.”
“These allegations demonstrate a violent pattern of behavior in which the defendant is alleged to have targeted and victimized some of the most vulnerable members of our communities. These cases, not initially ruled by the Medical Examiner to be homicides, left the families and friends of Mr. Melanson and Mr. Clarke with little or incorrect information about what had happened to them,” Ryan added. “When I created the Cold Case Unit, I made a commitment to re-examining existing evidence and to exhausting every possible option to bring answers to families.”
Lino will face arraignment on the murder charges in the “coming weeks,” according to Ryan.
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