Mary Lou Arruda death, obituary: James Kater death from cancer happened January 23, 2016.
James Kater died in prison as a prisoner of the state, 38 years after he murdered 15-year-old Mary Lou Arruda and was convicted in the killing 15-year-old Mary-Lou Arruda.
He was 69 years old.
James Kater committed the most heinous crime in Raynham with Mary Lou Arruda death.
He had been serving his life sentence in the state prison in Shirley when he fell ill and was transported to Lemuel Shattuck Hospital on Jan. 9, according to Darren Duarte of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections.
Mary Lou Arruda death, obituary: How James Kater killed Mar Lou Arruda
On the afternoon of Sept. 8, 1978, James Kater drove his lime-green car down a secluded dirt road and kidnapped 15-year-old Mary Lou Arruda who was riding an orange 10-speed bike.
Kater drove past the Arruda home on Church Street minutes later with the family’s oldest child in the car.
Her remains were discovered in a forest nine weeks later. Mary Lou Arruda body was found tied to a tree in the Freetown State Forest in November. She had been decapitated.
Before Mary Lou Arruda death, reports say Kater once ran a woman off the road in his car and tried to abduct her.
In a separate incident, Kater reportedly attacked a 63-year-old woman in a cemetery with a chair leg and attempted to rape her while she grieved at her late husband’s gravestone.
And a decade before abducting Mary Lou Arruda and tying her to a tree, Kater did the exact same thing to a North Andover girl.
Kater had abducted a 13-year-old North Andover girl on her bicycle and tied her to a tree. She escaped, and Kater admitted to the crime.
He plead guilty and served a prison sentence.
Kater was released years ahead of schedule, and in 1976 he began hanging around the Bridgewater area for clinical therapy.
Two years later, he committed Mary Lou Arruda murder. He abducted Mary-Lou as she rode her bicycle near her home and tied her to a tree in Freetown State Forest.
The day after Arruda disappeared, reports say Kater got married and left the country on a honeymoon.
A week later, Kater walked into the police station with a lawyer and looked eerily similar to a composite sketch created with the help of an eyewitness.
Kater would be convicted in 1978 and 1986, but both convictions were reversed on appeal based on witness testimony given under hypnosis.
A 1992 trial ended in a mistrial before Kater’s final conviction in 1996.