When I got home from teaching summer school one day last week, I turned on the news to decompress. The first thing I saw was an Amber Alert running across the screen, which naturally grabbed my attention.
The story as given was basically that a guy named Matthew Slocum (who, the Amber Alert was sure to note, had swastika tattoos on both forearms) had killed his mother, stepfather, and stepbrother before burning down their home in New York State and fleeing with his girlfriend, Loretta Colegrove and their four-month-old son, Raymond. They gave Slocum’s car make and model (bastard drove a pretty sweet-looking Ford Mustang) as well as his license plate number.
Oh, and the Amber Alert stated that poor Miss Colegrove was being held against her will.
Anyway, Slocum was apprehended in the sleepy New Hampshire town of Gilsum, with WMUR reporting at the time that “the woman and child he had been holding for several hours inside a Gilsum, N.H., home were found safe”.
The story has changed a bit since then.
Police said they initially believed Colegrove was being held by Slocum against her will, but they believed otherwise after the surrender in Gilsum.
For now, investigators said she is not facing charges.
Colegrove’s family described her relationship with Slocum as volatile.
Cindy Colegrove, Loretta’s sister, said, “We didn’t like how he was treating my sister.”
Look, there is no question that Matthew Slocum is a monster. The details of the crime he stands accused of in New York are chilling.
Investigators said Slocum shot his mother and stepfather in bed and then turned the gun on his teenage stepbrother in the living room of their home.
After the killings, police said he dumped gasoline on the porch and set the home on fire.
“There are witness interviews (and) forensic evidence that (are) still processing. It’s being conducted at the scene, so there’s really a whole host of steps that need to be taken,” said Capt. Stephen James, of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. “Until that point occurs, we (are not really) in a suitable position to address matters relative to motive.”
And yet WMUR accurately noted that Slocum’s “peaceful surrender” in a New Hampshire town so small that it doesn’t even have its own …
