Man found cut into pieces and left in Massachusetts pond was recently released from prison
By Riley Rourke, Louisa Moller
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SHIRLEY, Massachusetts (WBZ) — The man who was cut into pieces and left in a pond in Shirley, Massachusetts has been identified as a convicted felon, according to Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan.
She said 69-year-old Peter Degan of Rockland, Massachusetts, was most recently seen alive last week.
The mystery started Wednesday afternoon when a group of teens walking along Veterans Memorial Bridge on Shaker Road found a severed leg sticking up in the water of Phoenix Pond. Police divers later found several other body parts, according to Ryan.
“Those parts appear to have been clean cut, that is they were severed with a sharp force instrument,” Ryan said at a news conference Thursday evening. She said the parts belonged to the same person, but all of them have not been found yet.
The DA said Degan was released from prison last month. Investigators were able to identify him by his fingerprints. He was last seen alive on Friday, February 27.
“We do not believe this to have been random,” Ryan said. A cause of death has not been determined.
Previous drug charges
Degan was arrested in February 2018 after police found two kilos of cocaine and more than a million dollars in his home. He was charged with money laundering and cocaine trafficking. He was sentenced to eight years in prison before he was released with a GPS tracking bracelet and required to stay at a pre-release home in Rockland.
The Massachusetts Department of Correction said Degan was released from nearby MCI Shirley, a medium security state prison, on February 6.
Police are looking for anyone who might’ve seen Degan or anything suspicious near Phoenix Pond since last Friday.
Teens found leg in pond
The grisly discovery was made by a group Shirley teenagers Wednesday afternoon.
“I definitely didn’t like that,” said 15-year-old Dominic Dunn. “I didn’t like finding a leg with younger siblings here. Especially from having a snowball fight with my little sister, that was messed up.”
The group had been playing in the snow across from the bridge.
“One of the officers or EMTs got his gear on. He got in the water, and you could just see his face drop and he got all pale. Then he was like yeah, it’s a real leg,” Dunn said.
A nearby resident said that she overheard the group discover the body part.
“The neighborhood kids were saying, ‘That’s so messed up. That’s so messed up.’ A couple of them were kind of dry heaving off into the snow,” Katy Marsh said. “I heard one of the officers, or someone with the police department saying down the bank, ‘Yeah, that’s a leg. That’s a foot.'”
Tom Satriale said that the news quickly spread through town.
“We see, I think cops with flashlights around the backside of the pond, and then there’s crime scene tape, which is like, wow, this is real, right?” Satriale said.
Shirley Police Chief Samuel Santiago said that any Shirley residents can call them about anything suspicious at 978-425-2642.
Phoenix Pond connects to the Catacoonamug Brook, which flows into the Nashua River. It’s also connected to Lake Shirley. Shirley, Massachusetts is about 44 miles northwest of Boston and around 13 miles from the New Hampshire border.
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