Two days after a teen's headless body is found, his classmate is charged with murder

Mathew Borges, 15, attends his arraignment in Lawrence District Court in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Photo / AP

Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino's family knew little about the teen their 16-year-old had brought home in mid-November, except that he was a classmate at Lawrence (Massachusetts) High School.

A few days later, Viloria-Paulino walked out of his grandmother's house and never came back. Worried family members called police and reported the 16-year-old missing.

On Friday came a gruesome discovery: A woman walking her dog found Viloria-Paulino's headless body on the banks of a river, 50km north of Boston.

Mathew Borges, the classmate, was charged with murder two days later. Borges, also 16, will be tried as an adult in the killing, Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett told AP.

Investigators rushed to reassure frightened residents in the Tower Hill community that the killing was not a random attack even as they turned the banks of the Merrimack River into a crime scene.

Nearby, they found the teen's severed head.

The grisly killing sent shock waves through the community.

"This is not the only thing that has happened in my district," City Councillor Jeovanny Rodriguez told public radio station WBUR. "Multiple shootings throughout the summer. A lot of people are concerned in terms of safety. I have faith in the police department, but people are concerned and very scared."

Hundreds of people gathered at a memorial in the teen's memory. On Sunday, a short time before authorities announced the arrest, Viloria-Paulino's family made its first public statements about the killing.

"I can describe him only as a lovely kid that hasn't done nothing bad to no one," his grandmother, Ivelisse Cornielle, said at a news conference before the arrest had been announced.

Cornielle told the Boston Globe that police initially dragged their feet when the family reported the teen missing. If they had taken the family's worries seriously sooner, she said, her grandson might still be alive.

"We've been here since the beginning, asking for help," she said, according to the Boston Globe. "We are poor, we are Hispanic, they considered this a normal runaway case. I told them from day one that it wasn't."

Blodgett called the killing a "horrific, horrific murder."

"While it shook this community we were completely and totally committed in our resolve to . . . bring this matter to justice and I'm pleased to say today that we were able to do that," he said.

Blodgett declined to give details about what led them to Borges or the circumstances of the killing.

Blodgett said an arraignment was scheduled for this week, and more information could come out then.