Kelly Brackley packed the last of her bags last weekend, neighbors said, moving out of her Worcester house to get away from her estranged boyfriend.
It wasn't enough. The boyfriend, William J. Goddard, is accused of gunning Brackley down yesterday morning while she was at work at a Webster auto parts store.
The 38-year-old Goddard, a Level 3 sex offender, eluded police for hours, but was captured after an armed standoff in a field in a town 30 miles away. He is to be arraigned today on a murder charge in Dudley District Court.
The death of the 30-year-old Brackley stunned those who knew her as a sunny, free-spirited mother of five.
"She was a great kid, always happy," next-door neighbor Deborah Keer said. "This whole thing has got us all in shock."
Goddard entered Action Crash Parts shortly after it opened, firing repeatedly at Brackley, according to Tim Connolly, a spokesman for the Worcester district attorney's office. Brackley's co-worker, 25-year-old Yograj Shivoasani of Providence, tried to intervene and was also shot, but his injuries were not life-threatening.
Goddard fled to Spencer, where he changed cars and drove to Worcester. From Worcester, Goddard got a ride to Berlin, where State Police determined he was at a house on Alden Drive, Connolly said.
When the Berlin police chief and state troopers approached the house, Goddard fled into the woods.
Around 3:30 p.m., police located him in a field and surrounded him. Goddard fired a gunshot in the air at a State Police helicopter before police fired a beanbag gun at him to subdue him.
He was taken to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester for evaluation. Connolly said more charges were expected.
Brackley had moved into the house on Parsons Hill Drive in Worcester several years ago after her mother died, Keer said. She lived with two of her children from a past relationship; the three others lived with their father, Connolly said.
Keer said Goddard had been living with Brackley and her children off and on for years. She said Goddard once helped her build a white picket fence between their houses. Keer said that more recently, Brackley had been living with her father in Auburn.
Goddard is listed as a Level 3 sex offender on the state's Sex Offender Registry Board website. The site says he was convicted in 1998 of indecent assault and battery on a person age 14 or older.
Yesterday evening, the Parsons Hill Drive home remained dark. Someone had placed a wooden cross bearing Brackley's name on the front steps of the house, alongside two framed photos of her and a dozen lit candles.
"She'll be missed," Keer's husband, David, said. "The neighborhood won't be the same."
