On a spring day in Boston, April 15, 1967, six-year-old Lucy Palmarin, a young girl of Puerto Rican descent, was sent on a simple errand to return a tonic bottle. When she did not come home for dinner, her concerned parents reported her missing, sparking an extensive search of the area. Authorities and neighbors scoured abandoned buildings and isolated parts of the city, but their efforts were in vain.
For weeks, there was no sign of the little girl, and a cloud of uncertainty hung over her family and the community.
The heartbreaking discovery was made on May 24, 1967, when two teenagers walking near Broadway station noticed something lodged in the debris of the Fort Point Channel. It was the body of a small child, later identified by one of her brothers as Lucy Palmarin. The news was devastating to her mother, who fainted upon hearing it and required hospitalization. Initially, the authorities ruled her death as an accidental drowning, bringing a sorrowful but seemingly straightforward conclusion to the search.
However, the case was far from closed. The truth of what happened to young Lucy remained submerged for years, surfacing only with the arrest of a man named Kenneth Francis Harrison in January 1970 for the murder of a young boy. During his interrogation, Harrison, who would become known as "The Giggler" for his chilling habit of calling and giggling at authorities after his crimes, began to confess to other killings. He admitted to taking Lucy in his taxi, and in a horrific, impulsive act, throwing her from a bridge into the Fort Point Channel. Harrison's confession revealed the horrifying truth behind what was once considered a tragic accident, and he later pleaded guilty to her murder, along with three others.
