Sandra Berfield death: Steven Caruso today after Sandra Berfield death

Sandra Berfield death – dead, obituary, funeral: Where is Steven Caruso today 20 years after Sandra Berfield death?

Stephen Caruso had stalked waitress Sandra Berfield for months after she rejected his request for a date. He was a regular at the Bickford’s restaurant in Medford where Berfield worked.

May 1999, Caruso was convicted of  pouring battery acid in the gas tank of Berfield’s car and sentenced to six months in county jail, plus a year’s probation, and was ordered to pay restitution.

In court documents, Sandra had written that she believed he had slashed her car’s tires and poured antifreeze in the gas tank. And she accused him of stalking her at home and the restaurant where she worked.

Caruso denied the allegations but he was ordered to stay away from Sandra’s home as well as where she worked, Bickford’s restaurant in Medford and Josie’s Bar in Everett.

Caruso was charged with malicious destruction of property for the damage to Ms. Berfield’s car.

After her car was vandalized, Berfield obtained a civil restraining order against Caruso.

At the time, criminally enforceable restraining orders were only granted for people who were related to or dating their stalkers. Since Sandra Berfield never had a relationship with Caruso, that option was not available to her.

Sandra Berfield was so afraid of Peter Caruso who had been stalking her that she slept with a knife and installed a surveillance camera in her apartment, according to newspaper reports.

Ms. Berfield lived alone. She had a 12-year-old daughter who died from spina bifida.

Caruso was released from jail in July after serving time for vandalizing Berfield’s car.

Sandra Berfield death, obituary: Peter Caruso today after Sandra Berfield death

Tragically, less than 9 months later, in January 2000, Berfield walked out to her front porch and picked up a package addressed to her in the Boston suburb of Everett. The pipe bomb inside exploded, killing her instantly.

Authorities said the device was triggered by a battery that activated a switch when the package was opened.

Caruso became a suspect almost immediately because of his history of stalking Berfield.

After his July release, Berfield had begun receiving hang-up calls.

Caruso apparently snapped when a male friend visiting Berfield answered a telephone call to her apartment. The caller — believed to be Caruso — hung up, prosecutors said.

Days later, Berfield was dead.

During a search, Police found a ripped-up book on how to build a bomb in the trash at Caruso house. Authorities also found detailed dossiers on Berfield and her relatives.

When he was arraigned in Malden District Court for first-degree murder in the Jan. 20 death of Sandra Berfield, 32, of Everett, Mass, Steven S. Caruso, 44, showed no emotion.

Justice prevailed in 2003 when he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for using a meticulously built package bomb to kill Sandra Berfield.

In 2017, the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the first-degree murder conviction of Peter Caruso in the death of Sandra Berfield.

In his appeal, Caruso insisted he was not the person who put the package on Berfield’s porch. He also argued that the testimony of a jailhouse snitch should not have been allowed.

The high court disagreed and declined to overturn his conviction.

After Berfield was killed, her family waged a decade long campaign to change the law around 209A (protective restraining order).

Nearly 10 years after Sandra Berfield death, in 2010, the law was amended to extend criminal protection orders to victims of stalking and sexual abuse who do not have a dating or familial relationship with their perpetrators.