Violence marked life of Beverly man murdered in Nantucket

BEVERLY — Eleven years ago, Scott Bernard nearly beat a man to death with a tire iron after a night of drinking at a Beverly barroom.

Last Thursday, Bernard found himself in another violent altercation after another night of drinking. This time, instead of ending up in prison, he ended up dead.

The two incidents served as tragic bookends to the final, violent decade in the life of Bernard, a 1987 Beverly High School graduate who once worked as a guard at Middleton Jail.

A passing motorist found Bernard, 39, lying on the side of the road on Cato Lane in Nantucket. Prosecutors say a fellow house painter stabbed him to death following a night of drinking at a local bar. Thomas Ryan, a 50-year-old Nantucket resident, has been charged with murder and is being held without bail.

Bernard's family declined to comment for this story, but court records and newspaper accounts show a portrait of a troubled man.

Bernard, a 1987 graduate of Beverly High who worked as a Middleton Jail guard for two years, struggled with mood swings and severe depression. He took medication that, he would realize too late, interacted with alcohol and could send him into an explosive rage.

He told a court psychiatrist that his drinking often led to fights.

Bernard's first brush with the law came in 1989, when he was arrested and charged with drunken driving. He got a job in 1990 as a part-time guard at Middleton Jail and became a full-time guard in 1992, but resigned in July 1993, according to a spokesman for the Essex County Sheriff's Department.

Left to die

Bernard was in Beverly on the night of Jan. 27, 1998. He spent the night drinking 16-ounce vodkas with cranberry juice at two Beverly bars, Rollo's and the Franco-American Club.

At the club, the luck of one customer was the talk of the bar. A 56-year-old man had won between $1,200 and $1,500 betting on the Super Bowl the day before, and another $200 to $300 at the club that night.

When the man left to drive home, Bernard hopped in his car and followed him. When the man got home and asked Bernard why he was following him, Bernard told him he wanted to make sure he got home safely. Bernard then asked the man if he wanted to smoke marijuana, and the two men drove to the nearby Hannah School.

As they shared a marijuana cigarette, the man later testified in court, Bernard struck him four or five times on the head with what police later said was a tire iron. Police also said they believe Bernard slashed the man's throat and almost severed an ear.

After Bernard drove off, the bleeding man managed to crawl 800 feet to his sister's house, which happened to be across the street on Brimbal Avenue. Had it not been for the cold temperatures, which caused his bloody wounds to coagulate, the man would have died, investigators said.

Bernard at first denied his involvement, telling police the man had picked up a hitchhiker named Joe and gotten into a fight with him. But when police told Bernard they had recovered his bloody clothing from a trash bin at the Cummings Center, where Bernard worked as the manager of a tanning salon, he confessed to beating him with a tire iron.

Bernard and his lawyer tried unsuccessfully to have his confession thrown out, arguing that Bernard was still drunk when police questioned him the following day.

He pleaded guilty to attempted murder and two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. On Sept. 1, 1998, Salem Superior Court Judge Joseph Grasso sentenced him to six to nine years in prison.

Change of heart

But Bernard had second thoughts about his plea. In 2002, he filed a motion asking a judge to wipe out his sentence, then reimpose the exact same sentence, a legal maneuver that would allow his lawyer to file a motion to revise the sentence to a shorter term.

Bernard said he had been taking Neurontin, a prescription drug most commonly used to treat seizures, and was under the care of a psychologist for mood swings and severe depression in 1998.

By 2002, his new lawyer, Stephen Hrones, argued that new information about the interaction between Neurontin and alcohol showed that it could trigger explosive rage, something not known in 1998.

Accompanying Hrones' motion were two affidavits, one from Bernard's ailing father, Dennis, who described how he was suffering from heart problems and was unable to perform usual chores around the house such as mowing the lawn, shoveling snow and taking out the trash.

"My son's presence is desperately needed," he wrote, even suggesting it might lengthen his own life.

The judge also received a heartfelt plea from Lynda Monteith, Bernard's fiancee, who had been shocked by downed power lines after going to the aid of a driver in a crash in Beverly in 2000.

Monteith suffered memory loss, loss of feeling in her fingers and toes, and other serious health problems that led to the end of her nursing career.

"My son and I are in financial ruins and need Scott Bernard to support us," she wrote.

A few weeks later, Judge Isaac Borenstein denied the requests. Bernard would spend three more years in custody before making parole in September 2005.

A little more than a month later, he was sent back to the state prison in Concord. His demons had caught up with him once again. Family members had taken him to Beverly Hospital, reporting that he was "out of control." At the hospital, the emergency room staff called police to report that he was threatening "to kill anyone in a uniform." Bernard was charged with making threats and assault, and though the charges were later dismissed, his parole was revoked.

Bernard served out his sentence and was released on June 16, 2006. Last year, he was arrested on a drunken-driving charge in Peabody, where he was living at the time.

Last week on Nantucket, prosecutors say Bernard and Ryan had worked together as painters and were drinking together in a local bar. According to the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, Ryan had just gotten out of prison in July.

Bernard and Ryan went to Ryan's house on Cato Lane, where an "altercation" took place, said Michael Trudeau, first assistant district attorney for the Cape & Islands District Attorney's Office. The Medical Examiner's Office determined that Bernard died from a single stab wound to the chest.

On Monday, Ryan pleaded not guilty in Nantucket District Court. On Tuesday, Bernard was waked at Campbell Funeral Home in Beverly.

Staff writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2675 or by e-mail at pleighton@Gloucestertimes.com.

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