Murder in Massachusetts

A Wedding to Remember

On May 28, 1994, in a field behind Neil's house, Neil waited beside sixty guests, mostly family and friends, as Patricia drove up the hill toward the altar in her Bronco, bridesmaids by her side, cheering her on.

After a lovely ceremony amid a perfect New England setting on a beautiful spring afternoon, Neil and Patricia were husband and wife.

According to Patricia, for years things between them went well. They loved, laughed, and enjoyed what was a healthy, uncomplicated union. "It was all fun," she later said in court, describing those early years.

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Neil had graduated from Pittsfield High School in 1974. After that, he studied at Southeastern Massachusetts University, later completing a degree in business administration at Berkshire Community College. Going into business for himself seemed to fit Neil's nature, friends and family later said in court documents. After taking a job at several local sign companies—Pittsfield Neon Sign, Industrial Sign, Callahan Sign Company among them—and working toward his full apprenticeship, Neil decided to break off and open up a shop of his own. Almost immediately, Neil's reputation as a master sign-maker worked its way around Berkshire County. Not for painting simple signs, but works of art on fire engines, cars and trucks, along with designing and painting signs for local and national businesses of all sorts. Neil loved the isolation of retreating to his sign shop and losing himself in his work, which he viewed as an important service to the community. There was no mistaking a sign Neil Olsen had made. The craftsmanship alone marked his unique professional signature.

Beyond a love for sign-making, Neil, a member of the United Methodist Church in Lenox, Massachusetts, took great comfort in rebuilding, detailing and refinishing—hobbies that fell under the same umbrella of his professional life—antique cars and trucks. It was the meticulous nature of taking something old and making it new again that Neil adored.

Yet it was animals that Neil treasured most. His horse Hannah, of course. But also his two dogs, Cletis, a two-year-old Bloodhound, and Bosco, a four-year-old mixed Labrador. Both dogs had slept upstairs with Neil and Patricia. Cletis was so big, in fact, that Patricia and Neil placed a full-size mattress on the floor next to their bed for him. It was Bosco who had initially found his master dead. The dog, obviously confused about what happened to his owner, lay down next to Neil in the barn and waited until, so she later claimed, Patricia walked in and uncovered the ghastly scene. One of the things Neil gave his dogs, family and friends later told a local newspaper reporter, was their freedom, essentially. He allowed the dogs to roam the wooded acres around his home. The dogs loved being able to come and go as they pleased.

Besides his parents, who hailed from Pittsfield and celebrated 60 years of marriage with a party Neil helped throw a few years before his death, Neil left three brothers, William and Fredrick, both from California, and Carl, who had moved long ago to North Carolina. Their one sister, Elizabeth, according to Neil's obituary, lived in California near her brothers. Later, speaking for the family, Neil's mother told me in a letter that the family was too distraught to recall memories of Neil. His death had devastated them.