Body of missing man, 35, found in harbor

Oak Bluffs police recovered the body of a 35-year-old Martha's Vineyard man at about 8:30 a.m. yesterday after a passenger on a ferry from the island spotted the body floating in Vineyard Haven Harbor, police Lieutenant Timothy P. Williamson said. The Coast Guard and the Oak Bluffs and Edgartown police and fire departments had been searching for the man, Benjamin R. Viera, since his family reported him missing Thursday, Williamson said. They discovered Viera's 2004 Chevrolet truck Friday in about 15 feet of water and 100 feet offshore after investigating an area in Oak Bluffs known as East Chop; they searched the area because it appeared that a vehicle had crashed through a concrete pillar at the intersection of East Chop Drive and Harrison Avenue and gone off a cliff, Williamson said. Officials recovered the truck, which was empty. Viera's driver's license listed an Oak Bluffs address, but police believe he lived most recently in Edgartown.

A Worcester man was seriously injured yesterday after he lost control of his sedan and crashed into the guardrail on Route 2 in Harvard, police said. Lieutenant Eric Anderson, State Police spokesman, said 25-year-old Curtis Caldwell was driving west on Route 2, near Exit 37, just after 4 a.m. when his car struck the guardrail on the right side of the highway, then crashed into the guardrail on the left side. Caldwell, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown from the 2007 Honda Accord. He was taken by a helicopter to Boston Medical Center, where his condition was not available yesterday afternoon.

The driver police say caused a fatal four-vehicle crash on Interstate 91 in Chicopee on Friday received a summons yesterday to face potential charges in District Court for negligent motor vehicle homicide, violating marked lanes, and reckless operation. State Police said the driver, 35-year-old Victor Aponte of Holyoke, lost control of his 1995 Subaru Impreza while entering I-91 northbound via the onramp from Interstate 391 southbound, triggering a multivehicle crash that caused a tractor-trailer carrying gasoline to swerve, strike a guardrail and sign post, and burst into flames. The driver of the tractor-trailer, Aaron J. Staelens, 43, of Richmond, N.H., was transported to Baystate Medical Center, then Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The driver of a propane tanker that rolled over yesterday and forced the evacuation of 12 homes will face charges, according to Plympton police. Responding to a report of a tanker truck accident at the intersection of Route 106 and Lake Street at 8:11 a.m., police and fire units arrived and found the tanker leaking fuel and the driver, 39-year-old Daycee Ryder of Freetown, with minor injuries. Shortly before the accident, several drivers called police in Middleborough, Halifax, and Plympton to notify them that the operator of the tanker, owned by EnergyUSA Propane in Taunton, was driving erratically, police said. After entering Plympton on Route 106, the truck struck a stone wall and a utility pole before rolling over. Officers evacuated residents from 12 homes and an emergency message suggesting voluntary evacuation was sent to residents within a 1-mile radius. Ryder is being charged with operating under the influence of drugs, failure to stay in marked lanes, and operating as to endanger, police said.

A May 23 sentencing date has been set for the man convicted of aggravated murder in the 1991 rape and murder of Patricia Scoville. Howard Godfrey is to get life without parole, the mandatory sentence for aggravated murder. A jury in White River Junction, where the case was moved because of pretrial publicity, convicted the 61-year-old Kirby man of those crimes after a weeklong trial in January. The 1991 killing by Moss Glen Falls in Stowe went unsolved for years, until authorities turned up a match with Godfrey in a DNA database that Vermont created at the urging of Scoville's parents. (AP)

A Massachusetts man accused of secretly taping his fiancee's 19-year-old daughter in the shower is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday. Police in Cumberland say Gerard Dubois, 36, of Blackstone placed a tiny surveillance camera in a shower radio and made one videotape of the woman. The teen found an unmarked tape that showed her taking a shower and later found the camera, police said and her mother called the authorities. The mother told police Dubois was living with the family at the time and had recently installed the radio. Dubois declined to comment yesterday. If convicted of video voyeurism, Dubois faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison. (AP)