LYNNFIELD POLICE and the Essex County District Attorney’s Office are investigating the death of 55-year-old Timothy O’Neil of 4 Lookout Terrace as an apparent homicide. (Dan Tomasello Photo)
By DAN TOMASELLO
LYNNFIELD — The Essex County District Attorney’s Office, Lynnfield Police and other law enforcement agencies are investigating the death of a 55-year-old Lookout Terrace man as an apparent homicide.
In a joint statement sent to the Villager, Essex County District Attorney Paul F. Tucker and Lynnfield Police Chief Nick Secatore confirmed that “Their offices are investigating an apparent homicide at Lookout Terrace in Lynnfield.” The victim was identified as Timothy O’Neil, 4 Lookout Terrace.
“On Friday night (May 9), Lynnfield Police responded to a 911 call at approximately 8:30 p.m. and found Timothy O’Neil, 55, of Lynnfield with apparent trauma,” Tucker and Secatore wrote in the statement. “O’Neil was pronounced deceased on the scene. The incident is currently under investigation by the Lynnfield Police Department, the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to Tucker’s office, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.”
Tucker and Secatore wrote that, “There is not believed to be any wider threat to the public at this time.”
Doreen Arnold said in an interview with NBC Boston reporter Malcolm Johnson that she heard “three or four police cars” responding to the scene.
“It was so dark that we couldn’t see anything,” said Arnold. “It was a gentlemen who we have known probably since we got here 12 1/2 years ago. He always seemed very nice. Nothing has ever happened like that around here, since we have been here.”
Previous tragedies
O’Neil’s death is the second homicide to occur in Lynnfield in the past nine years and the fourth in the past 15.
Randolph resident Keivan Heath, 33, was shot and killed at a house party at an 8 Needham Rd. home over Memorial Day weekend in 2016. Police found Heath, a father of two children, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds after arriving at the scene. Heath was pronounced dead at Union Hospital.
Nine years after Heath’s murder, there have been no arrests made in the case. Former resident Alexander Styller rented out the 8 Needham Rd. home on short-term rental websites such as Airbnb.
After Heath’s death, retired Building Inspector Jack Roberto issued a cease-and-desist order to Styller in order to prevent him from renting out his property in because it was in violation of the Zoning Bylaw. The bylaw prohibits rentals classified as a hotel, lodging or rooming house in residential zoning districts.
Prior to the May 2016 murder, the town was unaware Styller was renting out his old house. After the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) rejected Styller’s appeal of Roberto’s decision and Town Meeting approved a Zoning Bylaw that banned short-term rentals in October 2016, he subsequently filed a lawsuit in Land Court seeking to overturn the short-term rental decision.
Land Court Judge Keith C. Long upheld the ZBA’s decision in September 2018. Styller appealed the Land Court’s ruling to the Supreme Judicial Court, which upheld the decision four years ago.
Before Heath was killed at the 8 Needham Rd. house party, the previous murder to occur in town took place on Nov. 22, 2010 at a residence on Ledge Road. It was a double murder/suicide in which the gunman murdered both his former girlfriend and sister before turning the gun on himself.