Massachusetts

Teen Charged With Waltham Woman's Murder

Dominick Knowles woke in the middle of the night to shouting. “There was a woman who was trying to leave the house and someone else wouldn’t let them leave,” he said.

Next door at Adams House, a rooming house on Adams Street in Waltham, Massachusetts, holes were torn through the wood door of number 9 - a tiny room on the third floor.

Bill McCray lives on the second floor. He said, “I heard this loud slamming and banging.”

Another man, who asked not to be identified, said his whole bed shook with the force of whatever was happening in the room next door. “To me, it sounded like somebody took a sledgehammer and just knocked the door right off the jam,” he said.

Neighbors are trying to piece together what happened here just before three Saturday morning.

Christin Tobin, a 36-year-old woman, died from, according to the medical examiner, sharp fource trauma. A Waltham teen is in custody, charged with murder.

“He supposedly came in the back door,” McCray said. “He had blood all over his clothes.”

Friends said Tobin was a nanny and lived in the rooming house for just a few months.

Keith Ward, a friend of Tobin's, said that “she smiled a lot. She’s a good person.”

Police arrested 18-year-old Derrick Lopez, charging him with assault and battery and armed assault with attempt to murder. Investigators have not released an exact cause of death, but do not believe it was a random incident.

We asked Ward if he knew of any connection between Tobin and the teen. “No,” he said. “I’m trying to find out.”

Lopez’s family - who lives about a mile away - said they don’t know what happened either, or how the two are connected. They wouldn’t say any more.

Neighbors said they’ve complained to police about problems at the rooming house for years. We reached out to Waltham’s chief but did not hear back.

McCray, who has lived at the rooming house for three years, said, “People move in and out all the time. I’m not surprised. Things like this do go on in these rooming houses. Unfortunately.”

Tobin’s mother said she wants people to know her daughter was loved.

Lopez is expected to be arraigned next week.

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