Jean Lampron

Jean Lampron was a woman of principle, remembered by her family as someone who was tough and wouldn't take anything from anybody. The 68-year-old female worked in the document management office for MFS Service Center Inc. on Boylston Street in Boston, Massachusetts, handling check imaging. A grandmother, she was protective of her family, once memorably scolding neighborhood kids who were bullying her young grandson. In her pocketbook, she always carried a photograph of her son, Walter, who had been killed two decades earlier.

In the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, October 13, 2005, Jean was following her daily routine. Around 5:15 a.m., she was walking to a bus stop in her South Boston neighborhood, on her way to work. Near the intersection of West 5th and D streets, a man on a bicycle attacked her, trying to snatch her purse. Jean fought back fiercely. The assailant dragged her along the ground and beat her before finally wrestling the pocketbook away and fleeing. In a 911 call after the attack, Jean told the operator, "I fought him. He even dragged me on the ground, but I couldn’t hold onto him and he ran up the street."

A passing physician saw Jean in the street and stopped his car to render aid, administering CPR until paramedics arrived. She had suffered a heart attack, internal bleeding, and brain swelling as a result of the brutal mugging. Rushed to a hospital, Jean Lampron was taken off life support later that same day. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled her death a homicide. Tragically, the attack occurred just blocks from where her son, Walter L. Lampron, then 24, was found shot to death at an Exxon gas station on West Broadway on December 2, 1984. His murder also remains unsolved.

The Boston Police Department launched an investigation into Jean's murder. Her attacker was described as a white male wearing a long black overcoat and a tan baseball cap. He abandoned his bicycle at the scene, a metallic-brown, 15-speed Magna Zanzibar model, and fled on foot down West 5th Street toward E Street. The case was later featured on the television show "America's Most Wanted," but despite the national attention, her killer has never been identified.

In the years since, Jean's family has continued to hope for a breakthrough. Her oldest daughter, Barbara Delaney, spoke of her fear after the murder, telling a reporter she'd stopped carrying a purse when walking home from work. "I want this person caught," she said in October 2005. Two decades later, her grandson, Jimmy Delaney, expressed his enduring gratitude for the doctor who stopped to help his grandmother. He also recalled the heartbreaking irony of the location, just outside the James F. Condon School, which he, his sister, and his uncle had all attended. "To see my grandmother dying on the corner of that elementary school... It’s so heartbreaking," he said.

As of October 2025, Jean Lampron's murder remains an open cold case with the Boston Police Department. Her family hopes that someone who remembers the attacker, or a person who owned the distinctive bicycle left at the scene, will finally come forward. Investigators urge anyone with information about the attack on Jean Lampron or the fatal shooting of her son Walter Lampron to contact the Boston Police Department’s Homicide Unit at 617-343-4470. Anonymous tips can be made through the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS or by texting the word “TIP” to CRIME (27463).