The brother of figure skating star Nancy Kerrigan was held yesterday on $10,000 bail on charges he assaulted their father this weekend hours before 70-year-old Daniel Kerrigan died.
Mark Kerrigan, 45, was charged with assault and battery on an elderly person resulting in serious bodily injury at his arraignment in Woburn District Court, where no other Kerrigans were present. According to prosecutors, he attacked his father early Sunday morning after the elder Kerrigan refused to allow his son to use the phone in the family home in Stoneham.
At one point in the altercation the son put his hands on Daniel Kerrigan’s neck, and the father collapsed, Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Keeley told the court. Responding officers found the father unresponsive. A police report filed in court said that the son thought his father was “faking it” when he went unconscious.
Daniel Kerrigan was rushed to Winchester Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at around 4:30 a.m. Sunday.
Mark Kerrigan, who has a history of violence and recently left prison after serving time for assault, was intoxicated and belligerent at the time, forcing officers to use pepper spray to subdue him, police reports said.
He has not been charged with murder and the cause of death remains under investigation. The medical examiner’s final determination is expected “within a couple of weeks,” according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.
