MA Teen's Autopsy Could Take Months: Patch PM

MASSACHUSETTS — It's Wednesday, May 5. Here's what you should know this afternoon:

• For those getting vaccinated at six of the state's seven mass vaccination sites or nearly 400 CVS locations, getting a shot will be as easy as walking up.
• The Massachusetts National Guard got the green light from federal environmental regulators to build a controversial machine gun range at Joint Base Cape Cod in Bourne.
• Brookline, which garnered national attention this week when it became one of the few municipalities in the state to continue requiring people to wear masks outdoors, is rethinking the policy.

Scroll down for more on those and other stories Patch has been covering in Massachusetts today.

Today's Top Story

Investigators may have to wait up to three months to get autopsy results that would explain how a 16-year-old Hopkinton girl died last month.

Advocates for the family of Mikayla Miller want the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office removed from the investigation, saying DA Marian Ryan and state police have taken too long to determine the cause of death and have mishandled the case. Miller's body was found in a wooded area on April 18. The night before, she got into a fight with two other teens at the apartment complex where she lived — and about 1,300 steps away from where her body was found.

But the Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has 90 days to complete autopsies, including those for deaths ruled suspicious. In the year ended June 30, 2020, 88 percent of autopsies were completed on time.

Read the full story.

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Wednesday's Other Top Stories

Machine gun range proposal moves forward on Cape Cod: The Massachusetts National Guard got the green light from federal environmental regulators to build a controversial machine gun range at Joint Base Cape Cod in Falmouth. State and local officials said they have concerns about the range's environmental impact, particularly because it would be built within the Upper Cape Water Supply Reserve, an important water source for Falmouth, Barnstable, Yarmouth and several upper Cape communities.

Your chance to own JFK's love letters: Love letters that John F. Kennedy wrote to a Swedish paramour a few years after he married Jacqueline Bouvier are going up for auction. "You are wonderful and I miss you," Kennedy scribbled at the end of a February 1956 letter to aristocrat Gunilla von Post, whom he'd met on the French Riviera a few weeks before he wed Bouvier in 1953. Kennedy was a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts at the time, and the handwritten letters were written on Senate letterhead.

Brookline rethinks mask mandate: Brookline garnered national attention this week when it became one of the few municipalities in the state to continue requiring people to wear masks outdoors —despite the federal and state authorities saying it was no longer necessary. Now, less than a week later, the Town's Advisory council on Public Health is holding an emergency meeting to consider a revision to the town's mask mandate.

Barber back at work after freak accident: The Wilmington barber who injured himself in a freak accident at work returned to work recently, the Boston barbershop said. Steve Silva had to get emergency open-heart surgery after falling on his own barber shears at work in Feb. 12. He was unable to return to work for over two months. Silva returned to Boston Barber Co. to work three days a week in late April, the barbershop said.

Learn more about getting a COVID-19 vaccine in Massachusetts at Patch's information hub.

Picture This

Why did the chicken cross the road? In a death-defying twist on an old joke, a chick named Peanut was found crossing the road – only this one was Route 1. At just three weeks old and weighing just over three ounces, it's a "minor miracle" Peanut was even spotted in Saugus, let alone caught alive after facing off against traffic and any number of obstacles on the busy highway. (Photo courtesy of MSPCA-Angell)

They Said It

"You recognized what the stresses were. Dealing with other parents, and high school kids, you had to think of ways of how to keep them coming to work while helping them as they are a part of this."

• Lindsay Wallin, a longtime Melrose resident, who guided her nine McDonald's franchises amid the coronavirus crisis with two pre-teens at home.

Latest on the Coronavirus Pandemic

For those getting vaccinated at six of the state's seven mass vaccination sites or nearly 400 CVS locations, getting a shot will be as easy as walking up.

Gov. Charlie Baker announced Wednesday afternoon all but one of the mass vaccination sites will begin taking walk-in appointments beginning Monday. Eligible residents will be able to walk up to the Hynes Convention Center and Reggie Lewis Center in Boston and sites in Danvers, Dartmouth, Springfield and Natick for a shot.

Baker's announcement came hours after CVS said people can walk up to 389 of its Massachusetts stores — which is almost all of the state's locations — and get vaccinated without an appointment effective immediately. CVS's move followed President Joe Biden's directive to pharmacies to begin accepting walk-in vaccinations.

Read the full story.