Man on bail in threat case arrested after mental review

After Earl F. McBride Jr. was arrested April 30 on charges that he sent threatening letters to the owner of two Beacon Hill restaurants, allegedly because she was Muslim, he was immediately freed on bail.

Federal prosecutors recommended bail for the 65-year-old real estate broker, advising the court that he had never been convicted of any crime despite "several brushes" with the law.

The magistrate was not told that McBride had shot his young wife to death and wounded her co-worker in a Brighton parking lot in 1973, then was found "not guilty by reason of mental illness" by a judge who conducted a trial without a jury, according to state court records. McBride was committed to a psychiatric hospital for 10 days, then abruptly deemed no longer a danger and set free.

However, yesterday McBride's mental health became an issue again, this time coming on the heels of his recent federal indictment.

FBI agents arrested him outside his Bowdoin Street apartment, at the foot of Beacon Hill, just before 5 p.m., according to the FBI.

US Magistrate Judge Timothy S. Hill man issued a warrant for McBride's arrest after prosecutors alerted him that a mental health evaluation he had ordered after McBride's April arrest had raised some concerns.

In a motion urging the court to revoke McBride's bail, Assistant US Attorney S. Theodore Merritt said he has been advised by court officials who are supervising McBride that a doctor has recommended in-hospital treatment and further evaluation of the defendant "for a possible diagnosis of untreated mental illness which may make him a danger to the community."

Although McBride had been ordered to stay away from the two restaurants and any potential witnesses while on bail, he had been spotted behind one of the eateries one week in early May, according to federal officials.

The US attorney's office declined to comment yesterday on why McBride's history of mental illness did not prompt them to seek to have him held without bail immediately after his arrest. McBride is expected to appear in federal court in Worcester on Monday for a hearing on whether he should remained jailed, while undergoing treatment, until trial.

Boston lawyer Robert Sinsheimer, who represents McBride, said, "I see absolutely nothing to indicate that he's a current danger to the community."

But he added that he has yet to review McBride's mental health evaluation or other court documents, and would not rule out that he might need treatment.

"A defense attorney's obligation is not to always get the client off; it's to work within the system to find an appropriate disposition," Sinsheimer said. "If an appropriate disposition means Earl requires some state-sponsored treatment, I'm all for it."

McBride was indicted in April on a federal charge that he sent threatening letters throughout 2006 and 2007 to two of Beacon Hill's most popular restaurants with photos of gun-toting men and taunting messages for the owner of both eateries, a businesswoman who was born in Iran, came to the United States decades ago, and is an American citizen.

FBI agents believe the woman was targeted because she is Muslim. The restaurants' owner, who is identified in the indictment only by her initials, does not know McBride, according to the FBI. She declined to comment about the case and has asked the Globe not to name her because she fears for her safety.

"We have this individual who was targeting people based on their nationality and that is a concern to us," Gail Marcinkiewicz, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Boston, said yesterday. She declined to comment on McBride's killing of his wife 35 years ago, but said, "His criminal history certainly speaks for itself as far as his level of dangerousness."

McBride, who grew up in Belmont, was charged with shooting his wife, Barbara, in the head and wounding her co-worker at Polaroid Corp. as they sat in a car on Soldier's Field Road in Brighton on Oct. 20, 1973.

Barbara McBride, 30, who had been married to Earl McBride for 10 years and had a daughter with him, died five days later.

The records from McBride's manslaughter case in Suffolk Superior Court were destroyed about a half-dozen years ago during a purging of old records at the courthouse, according to an administrative aide at the courthouse.

But a docket report shows that McBride was charged with manslaughter and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. On June 6, 1974, a judge held a one-day, jury-waived trial and found McBride not guilty by reason of mental illness. He ordered McBride to commit himself to the Glenside Hospital in Boston for 10 days of observation, but said he was not restricted to the hospital grounds.

The judge also ordered a doctor to examine McBride to determine whether he was still mentally ill, "whether his discharge would create a likelihood of serious harm," and whether he needed continual care.

Then 20 days after he declared McBride not guilty because of his mental illness, the judge released him on bail and a year later he dismissed all charges against him.

"From what I know about that, justice was served 35 years ago and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the current situation," Sinsheimer said.

In 1978, McBride was charged with assault and battery, and in 1991 with unlawful possession of a firearm. But those charges were also dismissed.

Shelley Murphy can be reached at shmurphy@globe.com.