Crime
Authorities found the murdered man’s body under a mattress in a greenhouse at the alleged perpetrator’s home, prosecutors said.
A Berkshire County man is facing a murder charge after he allegedly killed another man and hid his body in a greenhouse.
Cole Bushnell, 41, of Sheffield, was arraigned for murder Tuesday in Great Barrington District Court, the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office said in a press release. He was held without bail and has a no contact order for witnesses.
Bushnell allegedly murdered Michael Moore, 40, of Winstead, Conn., according to prosecutors. The Berkshire State Police Detective Unit was first alerted to the crime at about 1:30 p.m. Monday by the Sheffield Police Department.
Earlier that day, one of Bushnell’s coworkers reported a dead body, which he said he found at Bushnell’s home in Ashley Falls, a neighborhood of Sheffield. The coworker said he went to the home, located on Polikoff Road, where Bushnell showed him the body in a greenhouse under a mattress, the DA’s office said.
Bushnell’s coworker left and drove to a nearby Connecticut State Police station, where he reported the body. Connecticut police contacted Sheffield police, who responded to the scene, according to prosecutors.
Sheffield police found the body, later identified as Moore, with signs of blunt force trauma to his head and a puncture wound in his back. Bushnell wasn’t there when police arrived, but he returned shortly before 5:30 p.m. after he had been told his house was on fire, prosecutors said.
The DA’s office clarified that though Bushnell’s home was not on fire, people in the area may have thought so because of emergency response dispatch calls to the residence. When Bushnell returned, he was wearing clothes with reddish-brown stains “consistent with blood,” according to prosecutors. Police quickly arrested him, the DA said.
Bushnell and Moore were previously friends and had a “professional connection,” according to the DA’s office. Both men were painters and occasionally worked together, prosecutors said.
Before Moore was murdered, the two men had a conflict over a shared job, prosecutors said. Bushnell allegedly had begun to “demonstrate paranoid behavior” and changed the security setup around his property, switching the positions of some cameras and turning others off.
The investigation is still in its early stages, the DA’s office said. Sheffield police and fire, the Berkshire State Police Detectives Unit, Massachusetts State Police, and Connecticut State Police are all involved.
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