Conviction in Deadly '84 Beverly, MA, Rooming House Fire Overturned

BEVERLY — A judge has overturned the conviction of the man sentenced for committing arson and killing 15 people in the 1984 Elliott Chambers rooming house fire.

James Carver, 61, has spent 35 years in prison following his 1989 conviction on 15 counts of second-degree murder. His sentence was formally vacated by Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Karp in Lawrence Superior Court on Tuesday afternoon, one month after Karp approved Carver’s fifth request for a new trial.

He was released on personal recognizance and is now living in a wheelchair accessible rest home, his attorneys Charlotte Whitmore and Lisa Kavanaugh told The Salem News.

“We are overjoyed that the judge has given James his freedom back for the first time in over 35 years,” they said. “He was welcomed by his daughter, grandson, brother, son-in-law and a courtroom full of supporters. We are honored to continue to support James in his pursuit of justice.”

In December, Karp said advances in fire and eyewitness science “cast real doubt” on the justice of Carver’s conviction and ordered he be given a new trial.

Carver had originally been tied to the fire through eyewitness testimony and claims he was jealous of his former fianceé’s boyfriend, who lived in the building. Prosecutors said he used an accelerant to ignite a stack of newspapers in the building’s alcove on July 4, 1984.

The Essex County District Attorney’s office has filed an appeal on Karp’s earlier ruling for a new trial that is still being reviewed. If the appeal is denied, the DA’s office would have to decide to retry the case or allow Carver to remain free.

“The Office of the Essex County District Attorney strongly opposed Carver’s release and has appealed the court’s decision allowing his motion for a new trial,” the DA’s office said in a statement to media on Tuesday.

“Our appeal reflects our analysis of the strength of the case against the defendant, including his motive, threats and multiple admissions to having committed the crime,” the statement said.

In his December ruling on a new trial, Karp said fire investigators in the 1980s were usually former firefighters who lacked proper scientific training and relied on long standing beliefs about fires that have since been debunked.

A fire safety expert testified before Karp last year that original investigators should not have ruled out an electrical malfunction as the cause of the Elliott Chambers fire.

Advances in fire science have led to other convictions being overturned in Massachusetts over the last decade, Kavanaugh said in December.

The director of the Committee for Public Counsel Services Innocence Program, Kavanaugh and the Boston College Innocence Program partnered on Carver’s case because of concerns over the fire investigation and eyewitness identifications.

They argued a witness who identified Carver as the man who set the fire had been exposed to photographs of Carver’s face multiple times beforehand, causing him to misidentify the perpetrator.

It was not immediately clear when a judge will rule on the new trial appeal from the DA’s office.

Julie Nickerson lost her grandmother, Hattie Wharry, who was the rooming house manager, and her two brothers, 21-year-old Rick Nickerson and 9-year-old Ralph Nickerson, in the fire.

She attended Tuesday’s hearing over audio call and was sickened by the outcome, she said, noting she buried her brothers and grandmother on her 15th birthday and has no living family left today.

“Massachusetts gave me and my parents false hope that the person that did this was going to be locked away for the rest of his life,” she told The Salem News.

“Does (Carver) realize every time he’s hugging his daughter and his grandkids, that the hands they hug, those are the same hands that killed 15 people?” she said.

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