Prison Guard Walter R. Doucette, Massachusetts Department of Correction, Massachusetts

Prison Guard Walter R. Doucette

Massachusetts Department of Correction, Massachusetts

End of Watch Tuesday, December 24, 1935

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Walter R. Doucette

Prison Guard Walter Doucette was shot and killed with his own weapon while transporting two prisoners, 24 and 25, back to the prison in a taxi after their court appearance in the Dedham Superior Court.

Guard Doucette was transported to City Hospital where he succumbed to his wounds. Both prisoners were apprehended 10 days later; one in Malden and the other in Providence, Rhode Island. Both blamed the other for the shooting. Both had been convicted of burglary six months earlier and sentenced to 12 years each.

At the suspect's trial, the cab driver testified he was driving near Battery and Commercial Streets just after it had gotten dark when he saw the prisoners attack Guard Doucette in the back seat. He stopped at a nearby gas station and ran for help. He said he then saw Guard Doucette chase the prisoners to the back of the station, heard several gun shots, and then watched as the prisoners returned and stole his taxi. He then ran behind the station where he found Guard Doucette sitting on a loading dock, badly wounded. Both were convicted of murder and got a life sentence added to their terms. On June 8, 1936, one was transferred to the Bridgewater Insane Asylum where he died in 1962. The other was pardoned by Governor John A. Volpe on December 24, 1962.

Guard Doucette had served with the Massachusetts Department of Corrections for six years. He was survived by his wife and six children.

Bio

Age 43
Tour 6 years
Badge Not available

Incident Details

Cause Gunfire
Weapon Officer's handgun
Offender Sentenced to life

attending court, transport

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Just checking in on you, Grandpa--and saw that Governor Volpe pardoned one of your killers in the 1960's. I couldn't believe he pardoned him----why?-- because one did not hold the gun that killed my grandfather? Grandpa was a very religious man transporting two men back from a District Court.... supposedly not dangerous. He stopped at the trailer/luncheonette to buy the two a Christmas Eve dinner--he was a very religious Catholic and--he was taking them back to their holding cell and wanted to do something nice for them on the Eve, even though he had 6 children and a wife waiting at home. My mother was one of those children. They heard a knock on the door, and thought Daddy had forgotten his house key--it was the police telling them their father had been murdered. I always wondered why my mother was such a killjoy on Christmas Eve--didn't want to open a gift on the Eve as the rest of us did.. Then one day I found a detective magazine tucked in one of her bureau drawers, opened to a page with the exact same photo of my grandfather that was on her bureau. There was 7 little kids in that family,all waiting for a Daddy no longer alive to come home......

Janice Kelley
Granddaughter

July 23, 2025