It was like something out of a prime time crime show when, two years ago, the body of Vanessa MacCormack, a popular second-grade teacher at the Connery School in Lynn, was found inside her Revere home.
The evidence made it clear she’d been stabbed and beaten to death, and that the killer then used bleach in an effort to wipe away traces of the crime from the body.
The person who found her body was MacCormack’s husband, Andrew. But within days, Andrew MacCormack was arrested and charged in her death.
Soon enough, the ghastly circumstances of the tragedy began to unfold. Prosecutors
said MacCormack attacked and killed his wife, who was a Lynn native, and whose family still lives in the city, because she’d threatened to divorce him over his use of drugs and his spending of their money to support his habit.
The prosecution alleged MacCormack killed his wife, and then took their daughter, Adrianna, with him as he made a drug deal and then went to a friend’s house to help with some carpentry work.
While this was going on, Vinnie and Karen Masucci, Vanessa’s parents, who hadn’t heard from her in more than a day — which they said was highly unusual — were worried. They were on the phone with MacCormack when he “found” the body.
It took two years for MacCormack to be brought to trial, but finally, in October, the proceedings began in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston. On Nov, 18, after a week of deliberations, and amid fears that it might be deadlocked and that a mistrial may be declared, a jury found MacCormack guilty of first-degree murder.
On Dec. 2, MacCormack received the mandatory sentence of life without parole. When it was his turn to speak, MacCormack said he was innocent, and that he “sure as hell” didn’t kill his wife.
When the trial ended, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office asked that going forward the victim be referred to by her maiden name, Vanessa Masucci.
