Shooting death of mayor's aide ruled homicide in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD -- By all accounts, Stephen C. Pegram was the sort of man who could help heal this troubled city: a youth worker dedicated to easing gang violence who had just begun a high-profile job as a mayoral aide.

Instead, Pegram's mysterious death from a gunshot wound is adding to Springfield's grief.

The Springfield mayor's chief of staff discovered the body of Pegram, 32, at 2 p.m. Tuesday, inside the aging two-story house on Dunmoreland Street where he grew up and still lived.

And yesterday, as Pegram's family mourned, city officials said they were baffled by how the city worker -- whom friends, relatives, and co-workers described as warm, polite, and promising -- could meet such a fate.

"Steve was an unusually gifted man; he was part of the family," Mayor Charles Ryan said at a press conference yesterday afternoon. His death is even more painful, Ryan said, because there had already been four homicides in Springfield this year.

"The epidemic of loss of life in this city is shocking and bewildering," Ryan said.

At the press conference, Hampden District Attorney William M. Bennett called Pegram's death a homicide. He would not say whether police had any suspects, but emphasized that Pegram's death seemed unrelated to the gang activity the aide had tried to stop in his city job.

Bennett also said the death appeared to be unrelated to a corruption case involving city employees accused of stealing $50,000 from a city-run job-training school.

"There is absolutely no evidence of a connection," Bennett said.

But Bennett said the reason for Pegram's death remained a mystery. His body was discovered by Chief of Staff R. Bruce Fitzgerald, who grew alarmed when Pegram did not show up for work on Tuesday and went to his house to check on him.

State and city police and the state ballistics unit were called to the scene, and an autopsy was performed yesterday, Bennett said. He said Pegram died of a gunshot wound, but would not say where the bullet entered or how many times he was shot.

Because there were no signs of forced entry, Bennett said, it was likely that Pegram's assailant knew his victim and that Pegram allowed the shooter into his house.

At the press conference, Bennett asked the public for information about the Kozy Corner, a new bar on State Street where Pegram was last seen at 9 p.m. Monday. And he asked for information pertaining to Pegram's brown van, which he said had been taken from the victim's house at the time of the killing.

Police questioned two people who were in possession of the van, he said, but there is no evidence they were connected to the killing.

Meanwhile, Pegram's family grappled with his loss and with questions of why. Relatives and friends gathered throughout the day at Pegram's mother's house.

Ryan visited the house, as well, to share his grief and help make funeral arrangements.

Pegram's mother had lived in the house where her son's body was found until about two years ago when his father died and she moved into a house she shares with her brother in a nearby neighborhood. It was unclear whether Pegram had been living alone.

Yesterday, relatives remembered Pegram as a polite man who never used profanity and wanted to do good works in his hometown.

"Thirty-two is so young," said Pegram's older sister, Deloris Spinks, as she sobbed. "This whole thing, it makes me sick. He was doing good things for this community, and they took him. They took him."

Pegram graduated from Central High School, where the flag flew at half-staff yesterday, and worked until recently as a computer consultant for the Springfield School Department. He also coached a youth football team.

"It's a crushing blow to the city," said School Superintendent Joseph Burke. "People in our department have been in tears all afternoon. He was a great human being."

A month ago, Ryan hired Pegram to head the city's Youth Commission. He was beginning to work with a grant to combat gang violence.

"He grew up around a lot of negativity surrounding him in this city; we all did," said Patricia Jacobs, Pegram's cousin. "But he made a difference in people's lives."

Neighbors recalled Pegram as a giving man who invited neighbors into his house and was interested in the Bible. They said the working-class neighborhood where he lived had its share of rowdy youth, but that shootings were unusual and frightening.

Von C. Morris, 75, Pegram's next-door neighbor, said he now hopes to move away.

"This man was somebody trying to uplift the community, and he was a valuable asset to the community," Morris said. "I am shocked that somebody destroyed someone like him. They should go out and destroy the hoodlums tearing the city apart."

Joanna Weiss of the Globe staff contributed to this story. Material from the Associated Press was also used.