Top Stories

Cops: Woman Helped Mass. Suspect Flee To NYC

NEW YORK (AP) ― A mother who was initially labeled a kidnapping victim was arrested Friday in New York on a warrant charging her with helping her boyfriend flee after a fatal stabbing.

Authorities said Louna Eveillard repeatedly lied to investigators after she and her four small children were found Wednesday in New York City. Her boyfriend, Rodlyn Petitbois, was arrested later that day, also in New York.

Petitbois, 25, was being returned to Massachusetts to face charges of first-degree murder and assault and battery. He is accused of stabbing Greenland Etienne, 33, to death during a fight early Wednesday in Lynn, a city about 15 miles north of Boston.

Witnesses had told authorities that Eveillard, 26, went to her friend Etienne's home to escape abuse from Petitbois. They said that after he went there Tuesday, he cut Eveillard twice on the hand and killed her friend, then took her and the children away against her will.

Authorities issued an Amber Alert, and video surveillance that day showed the mother and children with Petitbois in a Boston bus station. The search led them to New York City.

However, on Friday, an arrest warrant was issued after Lynn police said Eveillard had repeatedly lied to investigators in Brooklyn about the sequence of events, even denying that she had been cut twice on her hand. The warrant accused her of being an accessory after the fact.

Eveillard was arrested without incident on a street corner in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn early Friday afternoon, New York police said. The four children were staying with relatives in Brooklyn, according to New York police.

Mary Gianakis, director of Framingham-based Voices Against Violence, said it's not unusual for victims of domestic violence to act in contradictory ways. They may not be trying to protect their assailants, but themselves.

"The message is very clear to her: To do anything other than appear to support him would result in escalated violence against her," Gianakis said.

Lynn Police and the New York Police Department referred all questions to Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett's office. But his office said Blodgett would not comment.

(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

---