Arpino

Ferguson is charged in connection with the killings of Gilda D’Amore, 73, Bruno D’Amore, 74, and Lucia Arpino, who were found dead on June 25 at a home in Newton after the couple failed to show up at Our Lady Help of Christians Church, where parishioners had planned to celebrate the D’Amores’ 50th wedding anniversary in a post-Communion blessing.

The bodies of the couple — Gilda D’Amore, 73, and Bruno D’Amore, 74 — were found with that of Ms. D’Amore’s mother, Lucia Arpino, 97, with “knife injuries and blunt force trauma” by a friend who had left the service to check what was delaying them, the Middlesex district attorney, Marian T. Ryan, said at a news conference on Monday evening.

According to a letter sent to congregants, Ms. D’Amore was known for beautifying gardens; Mr. D’Amore, for flipping burgers at parish picnics; and Ms. Arpino, for rarely missing a Sunday Mass.

Her mother, 97-year-old Lucia Arpino, never missed morning Mass until the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Additional charges are expected in the deaths of Bruno D’Amore, 74, and Arpino, 97, after those autopsies are completed.