Ten O'Clock News; Charles Stuart suicide

[Reporter] Six o'clock this morning. An abandoned car on the lower deck of the Tobin Bridge. Police find Charles Stuart's car, ID, and a suicide note. [Newman Flanagan] We can fair to say that he could not accept or he could not handle the challenge the allegations or the statements that were made about him. [Reporter] Down below they see what they think is a body in the water. And the case of who shot Charles and Carol Stuart is suddenly upside down. As divers searched for a body, a squadron of news reporters from across town groped for explanations. On the night the news broke in October, the story seemed a Hollywood horror show. A nice young couple from the suburbs, parents-to-be attending a birthing class. Innocence in the inner city. Victims of a black executioner. It climaxed one of the most violent weekends in the city's history. The elements were mythic. The Stuarts came to epitomize the most innocent of the victims of violence. Victims of the urban jungle.

In the waters below the bridge, they continued the search for Charles Stuart while Suffolk County D.A. Newman Flanagan revealed some shocking facts. [Flanagan] Yesterday afternoon there was a dramatic turn of events as it relates to this particular matter which focused on Mr. Charles Stuart as a suspect. I will say that as a result of last night's questionings, the focus is now on Mr. Stuart and he is a suspect in this particular matter. [Reporter] Following the shooting last October the police had swept through the Mission Hill neighborhood on a house to house search for the man who robbed and then shot the Stuarts. One man who was questioned was William Bennett and soon he was being sold as the suspect. Flanagan blames the media for that but it was the police who put Bennett in a lineup where Stuart picked him out. [Unknown speaker] The man jumped into the car, forced he and his wife at gunpoint to Mission Hill in a robbery attempt and shot Mr. Stuart in the abdomen and

Carol Stuart in the head. You now believe that story he told you was false. [Flanagan] It is not true. That's correct. [Reporter] Stuart, it later turned out, had been implicated by his brother, and divers were now looking for him in the Mystic River. Shortly thereafter they pulled the body up from 30 feet down. [Unknown male speaker] I will inform the [unintelligible] that the body has positively been identified as that of Charles Stuart. [Reporter] So within a day of coming under suspicion, and while police waited to arrest him, the new suspect had jumped off a bridge and black man William Bennett was a suspect no longer. Victims? Not just Carol Stuart and her premature baby. [Flynn] I'd say that there have been many victims in this case. They've been victims-- the Mission Hill neighborhood. Victims have been the people of the city of Boston. Victims have been in a large respect the black community as well. [Reporter] Out on Mission Hill tonight the anger was deep. [Mission Hill Resident] [Unintelligible] black community

and its the projects, so they gonna get with all the drugs and stuff going around and it had to happen in this area, they're gonna get the bad rap. [Mission Hill resident 2] It's a mixed neighborhood. People think the black people are criminals. And Mission Hill is part of Roxbury. And Roxbury and black people, they always look upon us as though we are criminals. [Reporter] This amazing story continues to unfold tonight. This afternoon the D.A. held a second press conference in which he said that Charles Stuart had been implicated by his brother and tonight Matthew Stuart's lawyer told Channel 7 that on the night of the shootings Charles Stuart asked his brother to meet him in Mission Hill and that night Charles Stuart tossed a bag from his car that contained Carol Stuart's jewelry and a handgun. So at the end of the day what we know is this: Charles Stuart is dead; the story he told the police was false; and the case really didn't begin in Mission Hill. For the 10 O'Clock News, I'm David Boeri.