New England’s Unsolved: The Kevin Lino case, unmasking a serial killer

In the last few months, many have been talking about a possible New England Serial Killer.

Law enforcement has been skeptical.

But now, a real potential serial killer, someone you’ve likely never heard about, is slowly being unmasked in Massachusetts.

And there is concern that there could be more victims.

Kevin Lino, a 38-year-old homeless man, was arraigned at Middlesex Superior Court in late August on two counts of First Degree Murder for the deaths of two Massachusetts homeless men.

Lino is already serving time for the murders of two other victims; one in Boston, the other in Montana, both homeless.

“Is Mr. Lino a suspected serial killer at this point?” I asked Middlesex County DA Marian Ryan.

“Mr. Lino is a serial killer,” Ryan said. “The Department of Justice defines a serial killer as someone who has taken the life of two individuals in separate situations. In this case we have already convictions in two. We’ve now brought charges in two more.”

Prosecutors tell me, Kevin Lino’s crimes began in Lowell in 2010. That’s where he allegedly beat to death a man named Gary Melanson at a homeless encampment. Two years later, Douglas Leon Clarke became victim #2, when his body was found on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge in a suspected accidental overdose. But now, police believe Lino killed Clarke, by intentionally giving him a fatal shot of heroin, known as a hot shot.

Lino is already serving time for the murders of Norman Varieur in Charlestown in 2012 and for Jack Gilbert Berry at a homeless encampment in Missoula, Montana two years later.

“It is a serial murder, but it’s not the kind of predatory killer that we generally think of when we talk about serial murder,” Northeastern University Criminologist James Alan Fox told me. Fox is the co-author of Extreme Killing: Understanding Serial and Mass Murder.

He believes there’s a reason why the public knows so little about Kevin Lino.

“The homeless are vulnerable. They are easy targets. They are defenseless. And when they are killed, or disappear, we just don’t have the same response. We might not even know that they are dead. They are just not there,” Fox said.

Authorities believe Kevin Lino, himself homeless, murdered 4 homeless people over 4 years in two states.

We asked, could there be more victims?

“I would assume he has the dark triad in terms of a psychopath. I believe he is a very dangerous, dangerous individual. So, I think he is a serial killer for sure,” citizen journalist Travis Mateer told me. Mateer maintains the Zoom Chron blog.

He first encountered Kevin Lino in 2014 when he was a Homeless Outreach Coordinator in Missoula.

Mateer says he’ss very concerned for the fate of Monte Swanson, a missing homeless man who was close to Lino in Montana.

“I think that Monte Swanson is dead and I think Kevin Leno was involved in his death,” Mateer said.

As Middlesex County prosecutors prepare their case against Lino, they tell me they are also considering the other disturbing possibilities.

“Are you concerned there could be other people out there, other victims?” I asked DA Ryan.

“You know, we continue to investigate that,” Ryan said. “We never give up on those cases. We don’t forget about them, and we stay open to other information.”

Kevin Lino is currently incarcerated in Massachusetts, where he is awaiting trial in the Melanson and Clarke cases.

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