The Revere man accused of strangling and stabbing his beloved second-grade teacher wife was ordered held without bail after being arraigned on first-degree murder charges in Suffolk Superior Court on Tuesday.
Andrew MacCormack, 29, pleaded not guilty to the murder of 30-year-old Vanessa MacCormack, a second-grade teacher in Lynn who was found by police on Sept. 23 face down on her bedroom floor “with significant trauma to her head and neck.”
Vanessa MacCormack suffered multiple stab wounds to the back and sides of her neck, multiple slash wounds to the front of her neck and broken bones and cartilage inside her neck, Assistant District Attorney Ian Polumbaum, who is chief of the DA’s Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Unit, said in court.
Polumbaum said that he believes the homicide followed “some conflict in the marriage” around financial problems and that he suspected that drug use was a factor. Though denied by Andrew MacCormack, the drug use was “confirmed by the investigation.” The two had a one-year-old daughter together.
Vanessa MacCormack had planned to sell the couple’s house, the investigation discovered, and considered a divorce because Andrew MacCormack had “ruined their lives,” Polumbaum told the court.
“I hate you so much you’ve ruined [the baby’s] life because she won’t have her parents together,” Vanessa wrote in an Aug. 31 text, according to court documents. “I’ll talk to [someone] tomorrow about listing the house and I’ll look into divorce lawyer,” she wrote. MacCormack responded by calling her “crazy” and said he refused to sign anything.
Prosecutors say that on Sept. 23, Andrew MacCormack met someone in East Boston to buy cocaine and returned home after having stopped in a parking lot for about 30 seconds.
During that, he sent texts to Vanessa MacCormack’s phone and was also in touch with her mother, though the evidence suggests that Vanessa MacCormack was already dead when that occurred.
When entering his home, Andrew MacCormack was on the phone with her mother and allegedly said that Vanessa MacCormack’s keys and car were there. He then said that she was on the floor, and asked her mother to call 911. Her mother told him to perform CPR, prosecutors said, at which point he allegedly said that she was dead.
Revere and State Police found Vanessa MacCormack on the bedroom floor. There were no signs of forced entry, officials said, and investigators also noted a “strong smell of bleach inside the home.”
On Vanessa MacCormack’s body was a chemical burn consistent with bleach, and Andrew MacCormack was complaining of a rash that he claimed was from a new detergent. No bleach or bleach containers were found inside the home, but traces of blood were found on his steering wheel, driver’s seat and door.
The case returns to court on Dec. 12.
