Massachusetts investigators are trying to determine who killed a 69-year-old man whose dismembered remains were found in a pond near a bridge in Shirley after a group of teenagers spotted what looked like a leg in the water.
Authorities identified the victim as Peter Degan, who was last seen alive on Feb. 27 in Rockland, where he had been living at a prerelease center after serving time in a cocaine trafficking case. Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said investigators suspect foul play and do not believe the killing was random. The discovery has left police balancing a difficult evidence search with a homicide inquiry that, as of Sunday, had produced no public arrest, no announced suspect and no confirmed cause of death.
The case began around 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 4, when a group of young people walking near the Maritime Veterans Memorial Bridge on Shaker Road reported seeing what appeared to be a human leg in the water. Shirley police and fire crews went to the scene and confirmed it was human remains. Investigators then widened the search and began pulling additional body parts from the water. Ryan said authorities were able to identify the remains through fingerprints as belonging to Degan. By Thursday, divers were back in the pond as police vehicles lined the road near the bridge and investigators worked the shoreline. Local television footage and witness accounts showed a large response at the pond, known locally as Phoenix Pond. Officials have not said exactly when Degan was killed or how long the remains had been in the water before the teenagers found them.
Ryan said the preliminary investigation indicates the remains were “possibly severed by a sharp instrument,” and she told reporters the recovered parts appeared “clean cut,” a detail that quickly shifted the inquiry from a death investigation to what authorities are treating as a likely homicide. Officials have said they did not recover a full body, and several reports said the search continued after the first night as divers and investigators tried to locate additional remains. That left major facts unsettled by the end of the week, including where Degan was killed, whether he died before or after his body was dismembered and how his remains ended up in the pond near the bridge. NBC Boston reported Ryan described the case as a targeted incident, though she declined to explain why investigators believed that or whether they had identified a specific person of interest. Publicly released statements have also not described a weapon, vehicle, surveillance footage or any known witness to the killing itself.
Investigators have offered only a limited public portrait of Degan, but the available record gives some context to his last known movements. The District Attorney’s Office said Degan pleaded guilty in February 2019 in a Suffolk County case involving cocaine trafficking and distribution. After serving part of his sentence at MCI-Shirley, he had been living in a prerelease center in Rockland, which authorities described as his last known address. Ryan said investigators determined that he was seen in Rockland on Friday, Feb. 27, nearly a week before the remains were found in Shirley. That timeline raises questions police have not yet answered in public, including how Degan traveled from Rockland to Shirley, who saw him during the missing days and whether his past associations or more recent contacts are central to the investigation. Authorities have not said whether Degan was reported missing before the discovery at the pond.
The official response has involved several agencies and suggests a case still in its evidence-gathering phase. The Middlesex District Attorney’s Office said the investigation is being handled by its office, the Shirley Police Department, Massachusetts State Police detectives and the Massachusetts State Police Underwater Recovery Unit. Prosecutors Graham Van Epps and Bayley Weese were assigned to the case, the office said. Ryan and Shirley Police Chief Samuel Santiago have asked the public for information about Degan or suspicious activity in the area in recent days, especially around the bridge and pond where the remains were recovered. No criminal charge had been announced publicly as of Sunday, March 8, and officials had not said whether the medical examiner had completed an autopsy or formally determined the cause and manner of death. Until that work is complete, the case remains shaped as much by what investigators do not know publicly as by what they do.
The discovery also hit the small town through the people who found it. WCVB interviewed two 15-year-olds, Dominic Dunn and Brent Clapper, who said they were walking near the pond when they noticed the remains and called police. Clapper told the station he first saw “an outline of a foot.” Dunn said the moment stayed with him and later added that he wanted “to make sure the person doing this gets caught.” Their remarks captured the mix of shock and closeness that often follows violent crime in a smaller community, where a bridge, pond and roadside that usually blend into the background can suddenly become the center of a homicide scene. Ryan said the case did not appear to present a broader risk to the public, but the lack of an arrest has left an unease that is hard to separate from the graphic nature of the discovery itself.
By Sunday evening, investigators had identified the victim, narrowed his last known whereabouts to Rockland on Feb. 27 and said they suspected targeted foul play, but they had not publicly named a suspect or explained the motive. The next major steps are likely to come from forensic testing, the continuing search for evidence and any new witness information provided to police.
Author note: Last updated March 8, 2026.