Union-News (Springfield, MA) - My Life of Crime, Murder ...



Union-News (Springfield, MA)

November 21, 1988 | | |

Friends, classmates shed light on Branch

Author: ERIC GOLDSCHEIDER; WESLEY BLIXT

STAFFUNION-NEWS (Springfield, Mass.)

Since the gruesome slaying of Sharon Gregory Oct. 24, the character of Mark Branch - the prime suspect in the case - has been cloaked in rumor and hearsay.

Only in the last two weeks have friends and acquaintances, disayed by speculation in the aftermath of the slaying, begun to talk more freely about the Mark Branch they knew.

The portrait that emerges is of a quiet 19-year-old who was socially ostracized while growing up here; who repeatedly harassed and threatened his peers, particularly young women; who had repeatedly said he would kill; and who continued to be obsessed with the most gory genre of horror movie as he passed from public school through a private alternative school and into two programs for emotionally disturbed adolescents.

It also has become clear that the suspect, at large since the slaying, had known his victim for at least several months and, according to one source, had given her a copy of a psychological diagnosis made of him.

Most of those who spoke about Branch did so only on the condition that they not be identified, with the exception of Derek Iannelli, a longtime friend who said he spent nearly every day last summer with Branch, and who was with him the night before the slaying.

In addition to supplying information about Branch's life, Iannelli shed new light on the events leading up to the day Gregory's badly mutilated body was found by her identical twin sister.

After leaving Greenfield High School, where as a student - according to Iannelli - he had made sexually explicit phone calls to a list of female students he kept, his parents sent him to the New Salem Academy, a private alternative secondary school that has since folded.

A woman who asked not to be identified, who was a classmate of Branch's at Greenfield High School, said he had written explicit notes to girls at that time saying how he was going to kill them. She said he had kept files on a number of his female classmates.

"He's been planning to kill someone ever since he was a kid," she said.

The woman also said Branch was a social outcast in the school.

"There were always going to be cliques in school, and he didn't fit into any of them," she said.

A female classmate at the New Salem Academy who attempted to befriend him there said Branch had made threats to kill her at that time. She said she only had seen him once in passing since he left that school in 1984, but her recollection is of a quiet person who had trouble fitting in with his contemporaries.

"He's been ridiculed most of his life," she said.

That woman, who also asked not to be identified, said he left the school after sending her death threats in letters and putting a scalpel through a photograph of her, which he stuck to her locker. He also was accused of pulling a knife on another female student, she said.

The woman said his fascination with horror movies was known at that time and that, having spent many hours talking with him, she was aware of the fact that he would talk about committing violent acts.

"He is capable of losing total touch with reality," she said.

Nat Needle, who directed the New Salem Academy at that time, confirmed that Branch had been a student there and that he left shortly after the beginning of the school year in 1984.

"He left by mutual consent . . . because it was felt that the school was no longer meeting his needs," Needle said.

He declined to talk about specific things Branch was said to have done while a student at the school other than to say Branch left for social rather than academic reasons. He described Branch as a "diligent student."

Needle said that, to his knowledge, when Branch left the New Salem Academy, he was sent to the McLean Hospital in Belmont. A published report cites friends of Branch's who also say he went to that institution.

While declining to talk about specifics, Needle said: "As far as I know, it would be my estimate that Mark needed treatment; he needed it at the time."

Kevin Richardson, public affairs manager for the McLean Hospital, declined to comment on whether Branch received treatment at that institution.

"We try at all costs to maintain the confidentiality of our patients," he said.

He described the institution as a 328-bed psychiatric hospital affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Richardson said the hospital includes the Hall-Mercer Center for Children and Adolescents, which is a residential center for emotionally disturbed children.

The Union-News/Sunday Republican has been told that, as of six months ago, Branch was enrolled in New Directions, one of several programs run by the Northampton Center for Children and Families. The program is designed for special-needs students ages 8 to 19 with learning disabilities, emotional problems or behavioral problems, according to Executive Director Carl Cutchins.

He declined to confirm or deny that Branch had been enrolled at New Directions.

Cutchins said the school is state-certified to give high school diplomas. Most of the students live in one of three group homes operated by the center.

Iannelli said he was aware that Branch was at New Directions and that during the time he was there he only came to Greenfield on weekends.

Iannelli said he spent a great deal of time with Branch last summer and that the group of friends tried to help him put his past behind him.

Branch had been working at the Stop & Shop supermarket on Bernardston Road shortly before he disappeared.

Robert Quesnel, the owner of a video sales and rental outlet, Video Expo 1 on Federal Street, said Branch had "helped out" in his shop on weekends in recent months.

Before his disappearance, Branch lived with his parents, Betty and Richard Branch, on Meadow Lane in Greenfield. According to published accounts of neighbors, they had moved into that well-to-do section of town in June 1987. His father works at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vt.

The Branches' lawyer, Robert Carlsen, who handles all communications for the family, declined to comment for this article.

Several people who knew Branch said he suffered from feelings of inadequacy. "(Branch) had always said he wouldn't amount to anything," said Iannelli. "People looked down on him."

Iannelli also said Branch was easily intimidated and that he had urged him to be more aggressive and to stand up for himself. "I pitied him," Iannelli said. "People took wicked advantage of him. . . . It always irked me that he let people treat him so bad."

Iannelli said Branch recently had spoken of killing.

"Mark would always talk about killing people," Iannelli said.

Iannelli said he never took Branch's assertions that he would kill someone seriously.

"Mark was a passive, quiet person. . . . If you first met (him), you would just think he was a shy kind of kid," he said.

A number of people confirmed Branch's widely reported fascination with gory horror movies in which women are brutalized by psychotic men.

Iannelli said Branch had a collection of hockey masks like the one worn by a murderous character named Jason in the "Friday the 13th" slasher film series. Iannelli said that he, Branch and a third friend had been planning to go to Boston for Halloween this year. Branch was going to go dressed up as Jason, Iannelli said.

Iannelli confirmed several reports that Branch and Gregory had been acquainted with each other. He said Branch had been at Iannelli's birthday party in Northfield the night before the murder and that later that night he met Gregory and two other friends. Neither of the friends would talk to reporters to confirm that meeting.

Further, Iannelli said Gregory had been aware of a diagnosis made of Branch's mental state when he was at New Directions in Northampton, which appeared on an insurance form. He had spoken about the diagnosis in Gregory's presence last summer at Landry's house, according to Iannelli, and she expressed interest in seeing it. Branch took the document from his parent's house and gave it to Gregory, according to Iannelli.

"I was there when he handed it to her," he said.

Iannelli, who works at a local retail outlet, said one of the reasons he chose to speak to the press at this time is that he fears for Branch's life. When he asked two hunters recently whether they were going after bucks or does, they responded, "We're going after Branches," he said.

Iannelli said that if Branch is in the area, he is probably more scared than anything else. He doesn't agree with others who think that if Branch did indeed kill Sharon Gregory that he would be capable of killing again.

"There is no way he would have the power or strength to bury that away," he said of the crime for which Branch is being sought.

If Branch is still alive, Iannelli said, he hopes Branch, whom he describes as "a good kid," sees fit to turn himself over to the police soon.

Tomorrow: How has the crime affected the community?

Copyright, 1988, The Republican Company, Springfield, MA. All Rights Reserved. Used by NewsBank with Permission.

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