Anthony DeMayo was held without bail after prosecutors outlined a random attack on Janet Swallow.
SALEM, Mass. — A Massachusetts judge ordered an 18-year-old murder defendant to undergo further mental health evaluation after prosecutors said he broke into a Danvers home and killed 68-year-old nurse Janet Swallow in what investigators have described as a random attack.
The hearing gave the first formal public shape to a case that moved with unusual speed from a street encounter in Lynn to a homicide charge in Salem District Court. Anthony DeMayo, a Lynn resident and Bishop Fenwick High School senior, pleaded not guilty to murder and armed home invasion. Judge Joanna Rodriguez held him without bail and ordered that he be sent to Bridgewater State Hospital for further evaluation. That decision placed the legal process and the defendant’s competency at the center of a case already defined by stark allegations, an apparent lack of motive known to the public, and a victim whose death reverberated through Danvers and the local medical community.
Before the arraignment fully moved into the charging phase, the court heard from psychologist Joyce Perotta, who said DeMayo showed depressive symptoms, restricted affect, anhedonia and suicidal ideation. She said he had an adequate understanding of the proceedings but raised concerns about his rational understanding and legal decision-making in light of his mental state. The judge agreed further assessment was needed and ordered him transferred under tight security to Bridgewater. Only after that did the hearing fully settle into the criminal allegations. For prosecutors, the evaluation did not alter the seriousness of the charge; for the defense, it set an early record that mental health questions may remain part of the case as it moves ahead.
Assistant District Attorney Erin McAndrews then laid out the Commonwealth’s account. Prosecutors said DeMayo drove around Danvers looking for a house to enter and eventually chose Swallow’s home on Amherst Street. They said he climbed in through a window, moved through rooms inside, found Swallow asleep and stabbed her in the neck while she was in bed. According to reporting based on court documents, he later told police he had wanted to kill someone for a long time. Prosecutors said the knife became stuck and that Swallow ended up on the floor, where she was left. No items were reported missing from the home. Officials have repeatedly said there is no known connection between Swallow and DeMayo, a point that has shaped nearly every public description of the case.
The investigation itself was pieced together through events outside the house rather than a report from inside it. On March 12, Lynn police responded to a 911 call about a man with a knife on Standish Road. Officers found DeMayo acting erratically and carrying a knife with what authorities described as a reddish-brown stain. He was taken to Salem Hospital. Prosecutors say he then told officers he had killed a woman in Danvers the night before. A search warrant was executed at his home, where police said they recovered blood-stained clothing. Combined with cellphone evidence, that led Massachusetts State Police and Danvers police to Swallow’s residence for a well-being check, where they found her dead with injuries consistent with homicide.
The courtroom narrative was reinforced by statements issued outside court. Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker said the investigation had yielded no connection between victim and defendant and that the homicide was believed to be random. Danvers Police Chief James Lovell said there was no ongoing threat to residents. Bishop Fenwick President Tom Nunan Jr. said the reported incident took place off campus, did not involve other members of the school and did not present a threat to the school community. Those statements served different purposes, but together they narrowed the public message: authorities were describing the event as isolated in execution, even as its consequences spread across a town, a school and a hospital system.
Swallow’s identity has also shaped the proceedings. She was a longtime Danvers resident and an ICU nurse at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, according to local reporting. The hospital’s chief nursing officer described her as a beloved and valued colleague. In many homicide cases, the victim enters the first hearing as a brief line in the charge sheet. Here, the public response quickly restored fuller details of a life that extended far beyond the address listed in court. That has mattered because the legal case, though still at an early stage, rests on an allegation that an ordinary private evening in a familiar home ended in a targeted act against a stranger.
The procedural path has already changed since the first hearing. The district attorney’s office initially said DeMayo would return to court April 1 for a probable cause hearing. But local reporting on April 6 said an Essex County grand jury had indicted him on murder and home invasion charges, moving the case into Superior Court. Itemlive reported he remained in custody at Bridgewater State Hospital and was scheduled for a May 11 court appearance at 9:30 a.m. That shift is significant because indictments typically signal prosecutors believe they have enough evidence to proceed on a more formal track, even while questions about mental health, forensic evidence and trial readiness remain unresolved.
As the case heads into its next phase, the first hearing may be remembered less for its volume of evidence than for the tension it exposed between two urgent questions: whether prosecutors can prove a deliberate, random killing, and how the court will handle a defendant whose mental condition was flagged at the outset. The next appearance will be the first major test of how those tracks develop together.
Author note: Last updated April 7, 2026.