Raymond Lassor was convicted in Providence, Rhode Island, of three murders committed in the summer of 1984. Lori Carlucci died on June 26, Wanda Adams on August 16 and Delores Neuser on August 30. All three deaths occurred in the same part of downtown Providence, and each was a separate event on a separate date. A fourth person, a 14-year-old girl, survived an offense against her on September 17, and Lassor was arrested the next day.
He was tried before a jury in Providence Superior Court and convicted in 1986. The case was among the first in the state to be prosecuted under a new law that permitted a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, and the Rhode Island Supreme Court upheld both the convictions and the sentences in 1989.
Lori Carlucci was 22 years old. Her death on June 26, 1984, was the first of the three. Wanda Sue Adams was 18 and had come to Rhode Island from South Carolina; she died on August 16, 1984. Delores Neuser was 58 and died on August 30, 1984. Their families, their interests and the lives they led before the summer of 1984 are not on record.
The three killings fell within roughly nine weeks and inside a small area of downtown Providence. They were separate events on different dates. The first was in late June, the second in mid-August and the third at the end of August.
On September 17, 1984, a 14-year-old girl was the victim of an offense in Providence. She survived.
Providence police arrested Lassor on September 18, 1984, in connection with the offense against the 14-year-old. At the Providence police station that day he gave statements that covered all of the offenses later charged, and he also admitted the Carlucci killing. The courts later found that he had knowingly and voluntarily waived his rights before making them.
In the fall of 1984, prosecutors charged him in a five-count indictment: first-degree murder of Lori Carlucci, first-degree murder of Wanda Adams, first-degree murder of Delores Neuser, and attempted murder, with other charges, in the case of the surviving girl. In October 1984 he pleaded innocent in Providence Superior Court. He was then 23 years old. A judge ordered him held without bail, and he was found competent to stand trial. Attorney General Dennis J. Roberts II said that the state would seek to try the case under the new law that allowed life imprisonment without parole.
The trial took place in 1986 before a jury and Superior Court Judge Francis Kiely. In the first days of October 1986 the jury found Lassor, then 26, guilty on all five counts: three counts of first-degree murder and, in the case of the surviving girl, attempted murder, with other charges.
The jury also found an aggravating circumstance on two of the murder counts, the Carlucci and Neuser counts: that the first-degree murder was committed in a manner involving aggravated battery to the victim. That finding made those counts eligible for life imprisonment without parole. Jurors recommended that sentence, which the judge was not bound to follow. At the time of the verdict Lassor faced four mandatory terms of life without parole plus a term of 30 years. The date of formal sentencing is not on record. The trial justice imposed life imprisonment without parole on the Carlucci and Neuser counts; the sentences on the other counts are not on record.
Lassor appealed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court, which decided the case on March 9, 1989, in State v. Lassor, in an opinion written by Justice Weisberger. His grounds included the following:
1. That his statements to police should have been excluded. The court held that he had knowingly and voluntarily waived his rights, and that the state had shown this by clear and convincing evidence. 2. That the charges concerning the different women should not have been tried together. The court held that the offenses were of a similar character and part of a common scheme, and that the trial judge had not abused his discretion in refusing to separate them. 3. That the trial judge should have declared a mistrial and had erred in several rulings on testimony, in the instructions on manslaughter and in limiting cross-examination. The court rejected each of these claims. 4. That the life-without-parole statutes were unconstitutional, and that the phrase "aggravated battery" in them was too vague. The court held the statutes constitutional.
The court exercised its own review of the sentences and affirmed the life-without-parole terms on the Carlucci and Neuser counts. It denied and dismissed the appeal, affirmed the judgments of conviction and sent the papers back to the Superior Court.
Whether Lassor remains in custody, and where, is not on record. His sentence was life imprisonment without parole.
How Lassor and the three women came to be in the same part of the city is not on record, nor is his earlier history. No other killings have been attributed to him.
June 26, 1984: Death of Lori Carlucci, Providence.
August 16, 1984: Death of Wanda Adams, Providence.
August 30, 1984: Death of Delores Neuser, Providence.
September 17, 1984: Offense against a 14-year-old girl, Providence; she survives.
September 18, 1984: Lassor is arrested in Providence and makes statements to police.
October 1984: He pleads innocent in Providence Superior Court to the five-count indictment.
October 1986: A Providence jury returns guilty verdicts on all five counts.
March 9, 1989: The Rhode Island Supreme Court affirms the convictions and the life-without-parole sentences.