< Back to Front Page Text size +

Man's body found in Charlestown below highway ramp, police say

June 12, 2008 03:55 PM

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

The body of a 44-year-old Chelsea man was found this morning on the grounds of a Charlestown concrete company. For reasons that are not yet clear, the man apparently abandoned his car on the ramp connecting the Tobin Bridge to the Zakim Bridge Wednesday night and disappeared over the ramp’s edge, law enforcement officials said.

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office is investigating. “The probe, at this time, is a death investigation with no preliminary indication of foul play,’’ said district attorney's spokesman Jake Wark. Authorities are withholding the man's name pending notification of next of kin.

Mac Daniel, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, said the agency was notified shortly before 10:30 p.m. that a car had been left on the ramp.

The man's body was found this morning on the grounds of the Boston Sand & Gravel Co., which owns the property below the ramp.

Daniel said surveillance camera tapes showed a man driving a red Honda onto the ramp, getting out of the vehicle, and then walking toward Jersey barriers along the ramp before he disappears from view.

State Police started investigating Wednesday night. One 911 caller reported seeing the driver abandon the car, climb into another, and drive away. However, investigators believe the caller was mistaken and witnessed not the Chelsea man, but a good Samaritan who was checking on the car, said State Police spokesman David Procopio.

Procopio said the abandoned car was found near where the inbound side of the ramp has a chain-link fence rising above Jersey barriers. A trooper walked along the ramp past the fencing and peered over the ramp Wednesday night, but did not see anything amiss.

Last year, a New Hampshire man was killed when the car he was riding in veered off a ramp to the Tobin and plunged 70 feet to the concrete company's property.

E-mail this article

Invalid email address
Invalid email address

Sending your article

Your article has been sent.

On The Beat

Columnist Yvonne Abraham profiles Bobcat Smith, who gives back to the community by delivering meals to poor, gravely ill people. Read more
TALK TO US
breakingnews@globe.com | Twitter | 617-929-3100

Editor's Choice

On this rock, a myth was built

On this rock, a myth was built

Provincetown, where Pilgrims made landfall first, chips away at Plymouth's preeminence.
From trash to treasure

From trash to treasure

Dozens of local science students at several colleges collect used lab equipment and ship it to Latin America and Africa.
MORE

From Today's Globe

MORE BLOGS

White Coat notes
Overweight men with prostate cancer have a higher risk of dying Men who are overweight when they have locally advanced prostate...
Articles of Faith
Questions on Communion and swine flu The big news of the week on the Boston religious...
A report on people from Boston who are making an impact in the world, and on people from abroad doing noteworthy things here.
Mapendo (and Dukakis) draw crowd for refugee event Rose Mapendo, the Congolese refugee for whom Mapendo International draws...
Recycling programs succeed in Hingham, Duxbury, other towns Recycling programs in Duxbury, Foxborough, Hingham, Mansfield, and Milton recycle...
archives

LOCAL BLOGS

BOSTON AREA

Universal Hub

A collection of writing from hundreds of Boston-area bloggers.

The Chinatown Blog

Stories and events related to Boston's Chinatown and the Asian American community in Massachusetts

CommonWealth Magazine

Politics, ideas, and civic life in Massachusetts

Red Mass Group

News and commentary about Massachusetts and beyond

Blue Mass Group

Politics in Massachusetts and around the nation

Boston 1775

History, analysis, and unabashed gossip about the start of the American Revolution.
COLLEGE NEWSPAPER SITES

The Berkeley Beacon

The weekly student newspaper at Emerson College

The Daily Collegian

The student newspaper of UMass-Amherst.

The Daily Free Press

The independent student newspaper at Boston University

The Harvard Crimson

The nation's oldest continuously published daily college newspaper.

The Heights

The independent student newspaper of Boston College

The Huntington News

The independent student newspaper of Northeastern University

The Suffolk Voice

Suffolk University's student-run 24-hour online news resource

The Tech

MIT's oldest and largest newspaper

The Tufts Daily

The independent student newspaper of Tufts University