There has been an arrest in the August 26 stabbing case at 220 Pearl Street (corner of Pearl and Hamilton), Cambridge police announced today. Six weeks ago the two-family Cambridgeport house was the scene of a break-in and brutal stabbing of a 53-year-old Harvard researcher and his 11-year son during the early morning hours. Their names have not been made public.

Initially alarmed by the idea that such a crime could happen here, my neighbors along Pearl Street had begun to assume that the crime was probably the outcome of personal animosity or some kind of vendetta. It was a comforting thought, they said, since it would mean that the public had not been targeted.

But police and reporters were back in the neighborhood today, October 7, and they said that apparently there is no connection between the victims and the accused attacker, Marcos Colono of Cambridge. However, there is a report that Colono was implicated in at least one other violent crime.

News of the arrest was confirmed by the Cambridge Police Department report shown above. It is on line at
http://www.cambridgema.gov/CityOfCambridge_Content/documents/PressReleas...

A spokeswoman at Cambridge police headquarters (the new Robert W. Healy Public Safety Facility on Sixth Street) said late this afternoon that she expected a further announcement soon but could not give a date or time.

At a press conference there earlier today, Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone, Jr. said the Pearl Street crime included sexual assaults. “It looks to be a home invasion with no personal connection between those involved,” he said. Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said physical evidence found at the scene links the defendant to the rape of two women in Brighton in 2008.

Note: I was not at the press conference. Comments by the District Attorneys are from a video by John R. Ellement of the Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/10/by_milton_j_val_3...

The accused, Marcos Colono, is said to be a Cambridge resident, living in the Woodrow Wilson Court apartments on Chalk Street between Magazine and Pleasant. He is the brother of Michael Colono, who was killed in a street fight in 2003 at age 18 by Alexander Pring-Wilson, a Harvard graduate student. Pring-Wilson pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.