SALEM, Mass. — Jury empanelment is expected to start Monday for a man on trial in the nearly 40-year-old murder of a Salem State College student from North Andover.
John Carey was charged in 2022 with the June 28, 1986 murder of Claire Gravel, 20, who was last seen at Major Magleashe’s Pub in Salem. Gravel, was found strangled to death two days later in a wooded area off Route 128 in Beverly.
Carey, 67, is accused of strangling Gravel to death, according to court records.
While jury selection is scheduled to start Monday, opening statements and testimony is not expected until a week later on Monday, Feb. 9. The trial is scheduled for Lawrence Superior Court with Judge Jeffrey Karp presiding.
DNA from Carey, a former Gloucester resident, was found on a pink tank top Gravel was wearing when killed. The DNA match did not occur until after Carey was convicted in a 2007 strangulation/attempted murder case and was serving a state prison sentence.
That tank top, Assistant District Attorney Kim Faitella previously told a judge, was found wrapped around Gravel in a figure 8.
On June 28, 1986, Gravel was last seen alive being dropped off at her apartment on Loring Avenue in Salem at 1:30 that morning after going to the Washington Street pub with members of her softball team.
Investigators said they interviewed dozens of witnesses and “persons of interest” over the years and followed through on every lead and tip they received. A new lead came in the case in 2012, and that evidence recovered from Gravel’s clothing was instrumental in solving the case, investigators said.
“For 36 years, Claire Gravel’s family and friends have had nothing but questions about her death,” then-DA Jonathan W. Blodgett said when Carey’s arrest was announced. “Today we are able to give them some of the answers.”
Gravel came from a large family in North Andover and was a petite girl with freckles and reddish-brown hair who was funny and outgoing, said Paula Crudale Lynch, a childhood friend of Gravel’s in North Andover, in 2022.
“She was just a sweet person,” Lynch said.
When he was charged with Gravel’s murder, Carey was serving a 20-year prison sentence at MCI Concord for attempted murder, home invasion, and assault and battery.
He was convicted by a jury in 2008 of wrapping a cord around a woman’s neck in her Hamilton home and dragging her through the kitchen. The woman’s young son tried to stab Carey with a kitchen knife and beat his fists on his back before Carey ran away, according to a story in The Salem News, a sister paper to The Eagle-Tribune.
Prosecutors argued Carey was attempting to act out a sexual fantasy of strangling a woman to death, a scenario that was depicted on hundreds of images found on his computer after his arrest.
In a victim-impact statement in court in the 2008 trial, the woman called Carey “an evil, horrible, dangerous, twisted man” who showed no remorse.
Retired state police Detective Lt. Elaine Gill, who kept a file box under her desk with picture, clues and notes about the case for more than two decades, previously said Gravel’s murder stayed with her even after she retired.
“Believe me, I’ve never stopped thinking about this case and praying that the person responsible would be caught,” Gill said after Carey’s indictment was announced.
Carey has been held at Middleton Jail awaiting this trial.
Follow staff reporter Jill Harmacinski on Twitter/X @EagleTribJill and on Threads at jillyharma.