Investigators outline bizarre, irrational actions of Taunton stabbing suspect
Taunton Mayor Tom Hoye said it was something "you wouldn't even script a movie about."
Forty-five minutes before he died, investigators would later recount, Arthur J. DaRosa was a seemingly normal dad, watching his kid’s soccer practice at a field in Taunton.
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Then, investigators say, something set him off, leading DaRosa — who’d been released that day from a short stint in a psychiatric ward — to kill two people and injure several more in a random stabbing spree that ended only after an off-duty sheriff’s deputy stood up from his dinner and shot the 28-year-old in the abdomen.
Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn outlined DaRosa’s strange, irrational behavior that started on the soccer field and ended inside a mall restaurant Tuesday evening. He identified those killed: George Heath, 56, attacked inside Bertucci’s, and Patricia Slavin, 80, stabbed inside her Taunton home. Quinn also identified the officer who finally stopped DaRosa, Plymouth County sheriff’s deputy James Creed.
“It’s difficult to comprehend what this man did without what appears, at this point, any rational motive,” Quinn said. “Assaulting people, trying to carjack cars, running up to houses, stabbing two people he apparently doesn’t know, driving a vehicle into the mall. It’s beyond comprehension what the man did.”
Taunton Mayor Tom Hoye said it was something “you wouldn’t even script a movie about.”
Deputy James Creed
Quinn gave this account:
Tuesday morning, hours before the random violence, DaRosa was released from Morton Hospital, after he’d checked himself in the night before. His sister told investigators that her brother was acting “in a disturbed manner.” She suggested he get help.
So he went to the hospital and spent the night, but was released the next morning.
Hours later, around 6 p.m., DaRosa was standing on the practice field. Something led him to get in the Honda Accord owned by the mother of his child and speed down Myricks Street in Taunton, stopping only when he crashed into a truck parked on the street.
DaRosa jumped out of the car and tried to get into several homes on the street. When he got to 270 Myricks St. about 6:30 p.m., he was able to get inside, where Slavin and her daughter Kathleen Slavin, 48, were sitting down to dinner. He stabbed them both, then ran back outside, according to Quinn.
Patricia Slavin was pronounced dead at Morton Hospital at 7:52 p.m. Kathleen Slavin was transported to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she was in stable condition Wednesday in the intensive care unit.
Back out on the street, DaRosa tried to carjack people parked or driving down the street. When that didn’t work, he got back in the smashed up Honda and headed to the Silver City Galleria, about four miles away.
When he got there, he rammed the car into the Macy’s department store and went inside. He assaulted three women — he apparently didn’t have a knife — and at least one employee tried to stop him before he went back outside. He returned, though, heading into the Bertucci’s restaurant that was filled with diners.
He grabbed a knife inside and started attacking a waitress, Sheenah Savoy, 26. George Heath was nearby, dining with his wife, and he jumped up to stop DaRosa.
Arthur J. DaRosa
According to Quinn, DaRosa turned the knife on Heath, stabbing him in the head and mortally wounding him. Quinn called Heath, a high school teacher, a hero.
“He was eating dinner with his wife as any of us could have been doing,” Quinn said. “He saw the waitress being stabbed and without concern for his own safety, he intervened.”
James Creed was also eating dinner with his wife. The off-duty Plymouth County sheriff’s deputy came toward DaRosa with his badge and gun out, telling DaRosa that he was a law enforcement officer. He told DaRosa to drop the knife. When he wouldn’t, Creed shot DaRosa once in the stomach, a fatal wound.
“He prevented further carnage from occurring by his actions,” Quinn said.
DaRosa was pronounced dead at 8 p.m. Heath was taken to Morton Hospital, where he died at 8:07 p.m.
Creed, who joined the sheriff’s department in 2005, was in civilian clothes and used his personal weapon to shoot DaRosa. A sheriff’s department spokesman said he believed this is the first shooting involving a Plymouth County deputy.
“On a personal level, understandably I am proud of Deputy Creed, his heroic actions and his ability to apply his professional training and restraint in an obviously traumatic and perilous situation,” Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald, Jr. said in a statement. “I am also relieved that through his swift and deliberate response, further additional loss of life or injury to other bystanders was averted.”
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