North Andover Victim Met Alleged Killer On Dating Site

NORTH ANDOVER, MA -- Not long after he was released from a New Hampshire prison in December, Brian Chevalier posted a profile on Zoosk, an online dating site. Chevalier, 51, of Merrimack, N.H., didn't post many details, only to say he had attended college, he was Christian, he did not smoke, he was 5 foot 7 inches, and had an average build. Shortly after he joined Zoosk, he began exchanging messages with 49-year-old Wendi Davidson of North Andover. The two met and hit it off. By Valentine's Day Chevalier had proposed to her.

"You were the missing piece to my heart!!" Davidson posted on Facebook when she announced the engagement on social media. When a friend commented on the post that Davidson and Chevalier "move fast," she wrote "When you both know, then you know!"

"Do you know?" another friend asked in the comments of the post.

"I know!!" Davidson wrote.

Now Chevalier sits in a California jail, awaiting extradition back to Massachusetts to face charges he strangled Davidson last weekend, hid her body in the basement of her North Andover home, then fled to California. The crime he is accused of has gruesome parallels to the details from a December 2003 incident in which Chevalier tortured and threatened to kill an ex-girlfriend. Chevalier was convicted of kidnapping in 2004 and served 14 years of a 33-year sentence before being paroled last year.

"She knew about his past," one of Davidson's close friends told Patch. "I'm just not sure how much she knew."

At some point between their Feb. 14 engagement and earlier this month, Davidson started to have second thoughts. She told another friend that he was controlling and prone to angry outbursts. She did a deeper search into his past and learned all the lurid details of the crime he had been convicted of. In late March or early April, the friend said, Davidson tried to cool things off with Chevalier and called off the engagement.

Chevalier changed his relationship status to "single" on Facebook, but Davidson kept her relationship status listed as "engaged" on Facebook. The two continued to swap public messages on the social network, but many of Davidson's posts seemed more despondent than the messages she had posted earlier in the year. She posted memes about overcoming challenges in life, some of which Chevalier commented on.

"I think she kept herself listed as engaged because she was afraid of how he'd react," the friend said. "Like it would mean he had no chance of getting back together with her."

It's impossible to read too deeply into any social media post, and a meme declaring the sentiment "tomorrow is a new day" can just as easily be about a flat tire or a bad day at work as it can be about a bad break up. A lot of what Davidson shared with her friends is typical Facebook fodder: she shared viral videos, pictures from a relative's birthday party and Amber alerts for missing children. She joked about the winter that never seemed to end and posted videos of dogs. She had two sons and posted a message that would be familiar to any parent who has proudly shared a child's college decision on Facebook.

Chevalier opened his Facebook account around the time the couple got engaged. Most of his activity was posting comments on Davidson's posts. He clicked that he liked the Bruins, Patriots and Red Sox. He also liked Motley Crue and Flock of Seagulls. He noted that he graduated from West High School in Manchester, N.H. in 1984. On April 9 he posted that he was looking for an apartment, preferably in southern New Hampshire. Shortly after the couple was engaged, one of Chevalier's aunts posted a congratulatory message saying that she and another aunt hoped to meet his fiance.

"Thank you Auntie Estelle, you have always had my back no matter what. I'm new to this Facebook thing so I don't really pay much attention to it so sorry for the long delay in my reply," he wrote in response. "Tell Auntie Pauline that I said thank you. I would love for you both to meet her someday. She's wonderful and amazing and not like the others. Tell everyone I said hello and send my love."

Chilling Similarities

On Tuesday, Patch reported on Chevalier's 2004 conviction that led to his nearly 14-year prison stint. In that case, Chevalier hid in the Jaffrey, N.H., house of a woman he had briefly dated and attacked her when she got home from work. He beat her and sexually assaulted her and threatened to kill her. He tied her to a bed with duct tape. He choked her to the point where she passed out. At trial and in a later appeal, Chevalier unsuccessfully tried to argue the woman had an interest in sexual bondage and that the sex was consensual.

At one point he told his then 33-year-old victim he was going to kill her and hide her body in a freezer in her basement. At another point he tried to get the woman to buy an airplane ticket to California, telling her he planned to flee there after he killed her. After 21 hours, Chevalier forced the woman to drive him back to his car and begged her to not call the police. At the time of the December 2003 attack, he was on parole after having served prison time for burglary.

Investigators have released few details about Davidson's murder, but have said that she appears to have been strangled. Her body was found by a neighbor in the basement at 50 Lincoln Street. The neighbor alerted Davidson's brother. The brother, who also lives in the house, called police at 12:28 pm last Saturday.

Chevalier was arrested Friday in California. A hearing is scheduled for Monday in an Imperial County, CA, court at which time investigators expect to learn whether Chevalier will waive extradition back to Massachusetts to face murder charges.

Davidson's last publicly viewable post on her Facebook page was made just after noon on April 19, just 48 hours before her lifeless body was discovered. The post contained the results of an online personality quiz that sought to find the respondent's greatest inner strength. The quiz told Davidson that her greatest inner strength was compassion. She posted the results without comment.

"You have a true sense of empathy for all you meet, and your willingness to reach out and help those in need will ensure that you'll make an abundance of friends in your lifetime," the quiz results said. "You have an amazing talent for continuing to give to others past the point where most would falter."

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Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).