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Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni said that the case against Richard Lavigne in the murder of Danny Croteau, had officially been closed.
Gulluni said during a news conference on Monday, May 23 that the former priest and child molester was the only person to ever be publicly named as a suspect, though he died before he could be charged.
The seventh-grader’s body was found face down in the Chicopee River on April 15, 1972.
An autopsy at the time found the cause of death to be “multiple blunt injuries of the head with fractures of the skull.”
At the time of Danny’s death, Lavigne was a Roman Catholic priest and friend of the Croteau family. Lavigne was assigned to Saint Mary’s Parish in Springfield, said the DA's office.
Lavigne met the Croteau family in 1967, while he was assigned to the Croteaus’ parish, Saint Catherine of Sienna in Springfield.
Danny was the youngest of five boys in the Croteau family. He and his brothers had served as altar boys at Saint Catherine’s and assisted Lavigne at Mass.
Lavigne also socialized with the Croteau family, and frequently took some of the Croteau boys, including Danny, on outings without their parents.
Lavigne also maintained contact with Danny and his family after he was reassigned to St. Mary’s Parish in late June 1968, and continued to take the Croteau boys on trips.
Danny's brother, Carl Croteau, Jr., then 19 years old, said that at times Danny would come home drunk and sick after one of his "outings" with Lavigne.
After Danny’s murder, Lavigne became a person of interest for investigators in the early stages of the investigation because of the inconsistent and unusual statements he had made to them in the days after the murder, the DA's Office said.
Investigators also determined that initially, he lied about the last time he had seen Danny, and witnesses disputed Lavigne’s claim that he was never alone with Danny.
In April and May of this year, investigators again interviewed Lavigne, but during all of the interviews, he refused to specifically admit that he killed Danny, and at times, was cagey and evasive, continuing his long-running attempts to mislead and distract investigators, the DA's Office said.
"However, he made several statements to indicate that he was the last person to see Danny Croteau alive, that he brought him to the riverbank on April 14, 1972, that he physically assaulted him there, and after leaving Danny there and returning a short time later, that he saw Danny floating face down in the river," the DA's Office said.
He stated further that he neither attempted to rescue him nor alert Danny’s parents or police of Danny’s whereabouts or condition. Police then discovered Danny’s remains the following day on April 15, 1972.
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