Boston to Pay $150,000 to Two Black Men Wongfully Tied to 1989 Carol Stuart Murder

Boston officials have approved a $150,000 settlement for Willie Bennett and Alan Swanson, two Black men wrongly identified in the 1989 killing of Carol Stuart, a pregnant white woman whose husband, Charles Stuart, later emerged as the orchestrator of the crime.

Under the agreement, Bennett will receive $100,000 and Swanson $50,000. Their wrongful implication, based on Charles Stuart’s claim that a Black gunman shot his wife during an attempted carjacking—triggered aggressive policing in predominantly Black neighborhoods and deepened racial tensions across the city.

Carol Stuart was shot in the head after the couple left a birthing class; she died the next day. Their baby, delivered by cesarean section, survived for 17 days. Police first arrested Swanson and later detained Bennett, though neither man was charged.

The case unraveled months later when Charles Stuart’s brother, Matthew, implicated him. Before he could be arrested, Charles Stuart died by suicide, jumping from the Tobin Bridge.

The settlement follows Mayor Michelle Wu’s 2023 public apology to Swanson, Bennett, and Boston’s Black community for the harm caused. “We are here today to acknowledge the tremendous pain that the city of Boston inflicted on Black residents…

The mayor’s office, city officials and the Boston Police Department took actions that directly harmed these families,” Wu said at the time, noting that authorities embraced a narrative that “confirmed and exposed the beliefs that so many shared.”

The case, revisited in HBO’s Murder in Boston docuseries, has long stood as a stark example of racial bias and wrongful suspicion. City leaders said the payouts are part of a broader effort to reckon with that legacy and restore trust.