Investigation of Salem Cold Case 'Making Progress'

On September 18, 1990, John Pond, Sr., was found stabbed to death in his Arthur Street apartment in Salem, where Pep Boys is presently located off Route 28.

Pond, 26, was wheelchair-bound, paralyzed after being shot by a Lawrence, Mass. police officer earlier in his life. His death was ruled a homicide by investigators.

Nearly 21 years later, Pond's murder remains unsolved. But because of a number of factors, Salem Police and the Cold Case Unit of the N.H. Attorney General's office have made progress in bringing the case to justice.

Pond was a controversial figure in his time. According to a January 2010 article in the Eagle Tribue of Lawrence, Pond sued the city of Lawrence following his 1984 shooting and was awarded $200,000. The mishandling of evidence in the case eventually led to the firing Lawrence Police Chief Joseph Tylus in 1988.

According to Salem Deputy Police Chief Shawn Patten, the Pond murder has been investigated off and on through the years.

"There have been a few suspects through the years, but about a year ago we started to take a fresh look at it," Patten said of the case. "We wanted to make sure we did our due diligence."

While working with the Cold Case Unit, which was formed under the guidance of N.H. Senior Assistant Attorney General Will Delker in the fall of 2009, Patten said his department has been working to solve the case. Salem Lt. Jim Chase has been the lead investigator for the Pond case.

"We mostly undertook this case on our own," Patten said, noting the Pond investigation was further along than some other cold cases in Salem.

Patten discussed some of the challenges of investigating any cold case. For his department, investigators have to find time to look into the old cases "when they can" because of their present-day workload.

"Then you're trying to find witnesses, which quite frankly in many instances are dead," Patten said. "You're looking at evidence and back then DNA testing didn't exist. The investigators then might not have taken blood samples or things like that."

Jeff Strelzin, chief of the Homicide Unit for the N.H. Attorney General's office, has been involved in the Pond investigation for years. He said the case was "worked hard" at the time it happened and then "periodically" through the years until the recent renewed effort.

While not able to get into specifics about the investigation, Strelzin said many aspects of investigating cold cases have changed through the years. For example, there wasn't "a unified process" for investigating homicide in the state when many of them took place.

"You could have files from different agencies gathered in a number of different ways," Strelzin said. "It's a disjointed process. It's better coordinated now. That can make it tough to track down information."

The passage of time can have both positive and negative effects on cold case investigations, Strelzin said. He noted that sometimes relationships and people change, making witnesses more open as the years go on.

"The 18-year-old kid who was against helping us back then is now an adult and respects the need to make things right," he said.

Patten was pleased to note police have been "making progress" on the Pond case and is hopeful for a resolution.

"We do want to solve it," Patten said.

There are five other open Salem cold case investigations, according to the Cold Case Unit's website. They are as follows:

• William Dobens, 55, was found dead in his 7 Policy Street home on May 5, 2006. An autopsy revealed that he died as a result of a stab wound to the chest. Circumstances surrounding the case indicate that William's death was suspicious, although the medical examiner has not yet reached a conclusion about the manner of death.
• Hai Bo (Paul) Lei, 26, of Boston, Mass., was found on the side of Hampstead Road in Salem, on March 30, 1995. The victim was shot several times and strangled.
• Melodie Stankiewicz, 27, of Cambridge, Mass., was found stabbed to death and floating in Captain's Pond in Salem on June 30, 1975.
• Henry Travers, Jr., 73, of Derry was working as the night clerk at the Fireside Motel on Route 28 in Salem (now the site of Home Depot) on Aug. 30, 1980. He was found shot to death.
• An unidentified white male was found on the side of I-93 between the Pelham Road exit ramp and Rockingham Boulevard in Salem on Aug. 7, 1969. The victim was shot four times, twice in the head, once in the torso and once in the neck. The victim was between 28 and 40 years old, 5-feet, 10-inches tall and weighed about 225 pounds. The victim was in a state of decomposition when he was discovered by a road work crew in a water-filled pit on the side of the road.

For stories on cold cases in other New Hampshire Patch communities, click on the links below: