Susan Lovejoy, 67, will spend at least the next dozen years in prison for the 2013 stabbing death of her boyfriend in downtown Haverhill.
Judge James Lang sentenced Lovejoy to 12 to 13 years in state prison after she pleaded guilty to manslaughter today in Salem Superior Court.
Had the case gone to trial, Essex Assistant District Attorney Karen Hopwood would have introduced evidence that would have proven that Lovejoy stabbed her boyfriend, Kevin Paul, 51, in their Water Street apartment May 6, 2013, Carrie Kimball-Monahan, spokeswoman for Essex County District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett. Haverhill Police came to the couple’s apartment early that night in response to a disturbance and found the defendant highly intoxicated. Paul told police that she had been drinking since the day before and had consumed Adderall and Percocet that was not prescribed to her, Kimball-Monahan added.
Police took her to Merrimack Valley Hospital for observation and she was released several hours later. Police were called again to the apartment at 11:35 p.m. on a report of a suicide and found Paul lying on the floor, covered in blood, with Lovejoy by his side. She told police he stabbed himself. Paul was taken to Merrimack Valley Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Physicians determined due to the position and depth of the stab wound, it could not have been self-inflicted.
Hopwood thanked Haverhill Police Detective Jack Moses and Massachusetts State Police Troopers Peter Sherber and Brian O’Neill for their work on the investigation. Victim Witness Advocate Maria Arroyo-Long assisted with the case.