The Boston Police Department (BPD) came into contact with a masked man on the corner of Kirkwood Road and South Street on Thursday night after the man was caught on camera trespassing at a nearby property, according to a BPD report.
“Upon arrival the officers came in contact with a white male wearing black sweatpants, black hoodie with grey sleeves and a face mask at the intersection of South St. and Kirkwood Rd,” the BPD report reads.
Mackenzie Shea and Anna O’Donnell, both MCAS ’26, live on Radnor Road and saw live-footage of the man walking in their backyard around midnight on Thursday through their Ring home security camera.
“We got a notification right at midnight, actually, that someone was at our back door,” O’Donnell said. “So we looked, and we’re like, ‘Oh, who is it?’ And it was a guy with a ski mask on walking down our driveway.”
The roommates immediately called the Boston College Police Department (BCPD), who then got them into contact with BPD. Shea and O’Donnell said the police then arrived and barricaded Radnor Road on each end.
“We had the footage ready to show them with a description, and so they barricaded the street and found him at the top of the hill on the corner of Kirk and South,” O’Donnell said.
When BPD officers approached the man, he said he was wearing a face mask because he was cold, according to the report.
“The officer upon initial attempt to stop the suspect could notice that he began to hurry his pace upon the officer exiting his cruiser but did not stop,” the report reads.
Shea and O’Donnell said BPD informed them that the man’s body build does not match the description of the man who was caught lurking on nearby Gerald Road the week prior.
“The Boston Police compared the footage,” Shea said. “It’s not the same body and build, so there’s multiple [masked men], and this was just one.”
According to the BPD report, the suspect originally admitted he “walked off the beaten path” when shown a still image of himself in Shea and O’Donnell’s driveway. O’Donnell said she had recently purchased a sign from Amazon reading “private property” and “no trespassing,” which the suspect was informed of.
“The suspect confirmed his identity from the image and when later informed of the no trespassing sign, he went on to change his statement and stated that he turned back around after seeing the no trespassing sign that was posted in the victims bedroom window,” the report reads.
The man was not arrested by BPD, according to Sergeant Detective John Boyle.
BPD confiscated the black balaclava face mask the man was wearing and gave the man a ride back to his home, according to the report.
Julia Rousmaniere, MCAS ’26, said that around midnight, she and her roommates noticed many cop cars near their house on Kirkwood Road.
“We just saw like cop car after cop car after cop car—so many—and all the lights and sirens and everything,” Rousmaniere said.
Rousmaniere said a police officer walked by her house when she and her roommates were looking through their window.
“We were all standing in our window just watching, and there was a cop walking up and down the street,” Rousmaniere said. “I think he just saw us through our window and wanted to know if we were okay.”
Rousmaniere said the officer made sure she and her roommates felt safe and provided additional safety tips.
“He was telling us to go to the store and get crushed up dried hot peppers to blow in people’s faces if anyone ever came to our house,” Rousmaniere said. “He let us know that there would be people patrolling and that he would let us know if there were any developments.”
This is not the first occurrence of a trespasser on Shea and O’Donnell’s property. The two said their roommate was awoken around 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning to a man on his knees peering inside her window.
“He was in one of the window wells outside of our house, like on his knees watching her sleep,” Shea said.
The roommates then got into contact with BCPD, who came to their house to check in on them. They then installed Ring cameras on the outside of their house.
Shea said she thinks the masked man had been on their property several times during the past week.
“Since the guy was in the window well, every single night at midnight, I see a man’s shadow walk past my window and the motion detector light goes off,” Shea said.
The roommates said that both BPD and BCPD were very responsive to the situation and urged other students who feel unsafe to call for help.
“The Boston Police did a really good job because they illuminated the whole entire street last night, so he had nowhere to go,” Shea said.
