No one noticed slain woman all day Tuesday, police say
By William Fosher and David Reid
Hadley Police believe the body of a 20-year-old woman had been in the parking lot of the Hampshire Mall all day Tuesday before a shopper noticed it and alerted authorities at about 6:30 p.m.
Sharon Galligan, a junior who majored in psychology and minored in Spanish at the University of Massachusetts, was found dead Tuesday night in a car owned by her father.
Assistant Northwestern District Attorney David Angier said yesterday Galligan suffered 11 stab wounds to the chest, throat and abdomen during the attack. The fatal wound pierced her heart, he said.
Galligan attended Framingham schools, but she listed Sudbury as her home.
She lived on campus at the Chi Omega sorority, where she moved this fall. Sorority sisters have refused to speak with the press and a security officer turned reporters away from the house.
Jeffrey Hersh, director of mental health for UMass, said his staff would offer counseling last night for the sorority members at their request, as well as for others disturbed by the death. He said the event had caused concern on the campus and in the community at large about personal safety.
Galligan had recently been accepted as a member of Psi Chi, a national honor society for psychology students with superior grades who make contributions to the field.
Harry Schumer, honors coordinator for the UMass psychology department, said Galligan could have been, but chose not to be, a member of the department's honors program.
“She was an excellent student, and this is a real tragedy,” Schumer said.
Other members of the psychology department declined comment.
Angier said last night police have not determined the motive and have no particular suspects in the case. However, two store owners at the mall yesterday said police showed them separate photographs of three white males in their 20s to 30s asking if anybody recognized them.
Northwestern District Attorney Judd J. Carhart said police believe Galligan was killed sometime Monday night, noting she was last seen in the mall between 9 and 9:30 that night.
Carhart said a woman called his office yesterday and said she had seen the car, a blue Dodge Colt, parked about 60 yards from the entrance to Steiger's Department Store, early in the day on Tuesday.
Carhart said the caller said she had seen the woman's leg through the window, but had assumed that she was working on the radio or something else under the dashboard. The woman was found upside down in the passenger seat with her feet above the headrest and her head in the footwell.
Carhart said Galligan's body was fully clothed, and her purse and holiday gifts were found in the car.
The position of Galligan's body and the types of wounds she suffered indicate that there was a struggle, Carhart said. There was no evidence the car door had been forced, he said.
Blood samples were taken from the car, and will be analyzed to see whether all the blood in the car was hers, he said. There were no signs of sexual assault, he said.
Angier said the weapon used in the killing is believed to be a large knife of some sort.
Courtesy of Springfield Union-News 12/21/89
