In 2010, a 54-year-old, unhoused Massachusetts man was found dead with multiple wounds.
Two years later, a 30-year-old, unhoused Massachusetts man was found dead from a drug overdose.
Both cases ran cold with an undetermined “manner of death” in the first and no evidence of foul play in the second. They seemed to be unrelated.
But in 2018, newly-surfaced information led police to believe one man was behind both murders: 31-year-old Kevin Lino. Only, Lino had already been behind bars since 2015 for the murders of two other unhoused men.
In 2014, Lino and an accomplice had gotten into a fight with Gilbert “Jack” Berry, a 36-year-old unhoused man living with them in a transient camp under a bridge in Montana. After the accomplice knocked Berry to the ground, Lino carved gang symbols into his body, shoved lit cigarettes up his nose, shot him in the head and left his body in a river, to be found six days later.
Lino was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Three years into his sentence, he was arraigned for another murder.
While sleeping in an area of Paul Revere Park in Northern Boston in May 2012, Lino had beaten another unhoused man, 45-year-old Normand Varieur, near a dock at the park. Varieur died four days later from blunt force trauma to his head and body. For this crime, Lino was handed a life sentence.
Could Kevin Lino Be Tied to 2 More Murders?
Now, police have been able to link Lino to the deaths of the two unhoused men in 2010 and 2012. On August 27, 2025, he was arraigned on two counts of first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors say that Lino and his first alleged victim, Gary Melanson, were unhoused, living in the same area of Lowell, Mass., in 2010. Prosecutors say Melanson would light fires to keep warm, which bothered Lino. He thought the flames would catch authorities’ attention and warned Melanson to stop. But Melanson wouldn’t listen; Lino allegedly took a metal baseball bat and beat him to death.
His second alleged victim, Douglas Leon Clarke, met Lino at a gathering of unhoused people in Cambridge. Lino had made it his mission to get rid of heroin users in the group. He had a confrontation with several, including Clarke, and then vowed to punish Clarke via poisoning. Prosecutors believe that Lino knowingly gave Clarke a “hot shot”: a quantity of heroin that he knew would kill the man.
“Mr. Lino is a serial killer,” Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan told Boston 25 News. Ryan pointed to the Department of Justice (and Federal Bureau of Investigation)’s definition of serial murder: “the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events.” At his arraignment, a judge ordered that Lino be held without bail. The next date in his case was scheduled for October 3, 2025. At the time of the publication, the district attorney’s office did not have any further publicly available updates.
Since March 2025, there have been rumors of a serial killer haunting New England as the remains of more than 10 women were found across Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. But police don’t have reason to believe Lino is behind any of these deaths.
How the 1970s Gave Rise to the American ‘Serial Killer’ Trope
John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy helped inspire the term.
John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy helped inspire the term.
Why There Are Fewer Serial Killers Today
While such rumors and media saturation might lead one to believe otherwise, the number of active serial killers in the U.S. has actually declined since its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, according to a serial killer database from Radford University and Florida Gulf Coast University.
This can, at least in part, be attributed to better investigative practices and advances in forensic methods, Social Science Analyst Eric Martin said on an episode of the National Institute of Justice’s Justice Today podcast. Police agencies can link cases across jurisdictions more easily with improved information-sharing and communication abilities. Better forensic technology— including partial matching which helps investigators identify a potential suspect through their family members’ DNA—can help solve current and decades-old cases.
A 2021 American Economic Journal study conducted in Denmark showed that the existence of DNA registration, which allows police to match DNA samples provided by an offender, acts as a deterrent from future crimes, including violent ones.
Additionally, Martin said, people today engage in social norms that help protect potential victims: fewer hitchhikers, more helicopter parents and more cellphones. Surveillance cameras and cellphones’ GPS tracking capabilities make it harder for serial killers to abduct victims in the first place, Northeastern University criminology research professor James Alan Fox told Northeastern Global News. Investigators can also track the killers digitally through metadata and IP addresses.
Despite the decline in serial murders, there are still populations that remain vulnerable to victimization by serial killers, Martin said. These include sex workers, people struggling with substance abuse and those Lino killed: the unhoused.
