Crime

Repeat offender charged in Charles River machete attack

A man, 54, was attacked while sleeping. Police allege the assailant was Charles Selph, 62, whose personal items were found near the scene.

By Adora Brown

1 minute to read

On May 23, a 54-year-old man ran onto Storrow Drive at about 10:15 p.m. after he was attacked while sleeping under the Longfellow Bridge, according to authorities. Drivers stopped and helped the man, who was “bleeding from several lacerations on the top of his head,” before state troopers arrived.

The victim described his attacker, and a motorist’s cellphone video, as well as video from the Charles/MGH MBTA station, helped a trooper identify the suspect as 62-year-old Charles Selph, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said.

Troopers then reportedly found a machete — “matching the one held by the man in the video” — in a grassy area nearby, as well as a backpack with a hospital bracelet and prescription medication bottle belonging to Selph inside.

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Selph, of Boston, was arrested in the city on May 27. He was arraigned in Boston Municipal Court the next day on an assault and battery with a dangerous weapon charge and held on $1,000 bail.

Selph has “an extensive history of guilty convictions in Massachusetts,” according to the DA’s office, including for charges of assault with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery on a police officer, rape, and sexual assault. He was sentenced to nine months in prison in May 2023 for assault and battery.

Selph is due back in court June 21. The victim was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital for treatment.

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