WESTFIELD – Two fugitives who had been wanted by police to answer charges of home invasion and assault and battery turned themselves in to police, reportedly after they saw their story in The Westfield News.
Westfield Det. Sgt. Stephen K. Dickinson said Tuesday that Adam MacBrown, 21, of 135 North Elm St., and Shane MacBrown, 19, of 39 Gunn Road, Southampton said when they came to the station “we read the article in the paper so we decided we should turn ourselves in.”
The charges stem from an incident Thursday at Powder Mill Village on Union Street in which the two brothers – with their father, another brother and the half brother of one of the alleged victims – allegedly forced their way into an apartment while armed with baseball bats and knives to assault a person who had been there.
The men told police that they went to the subsidized apartment complex to confront the girlfriend of the eldest brother, Justin M. MacBrown, 25, of 135 North Elm St., who they said had been cheating on him with a man she describes as her new boyfriend who had been exchanging taunting text messages and phone calls prior to the incident.
The man fled the apartment when the intruders arrived but they caught up with him, at least briefly, in the parking lot where he alleges they beat him.
Police do not report recovering baseball bats but one of the brothers, Andrew MacBrown, readily surrendered two knives when an officer spoke with him after the incident.
At the station, the patriarch of the clan, Wayne MacBrown, 55, of 31 Butler St., Chicopee, surrendered eight knives to the detective who interviewed him.
He told the detective that he carried the knives “because he was from Holyoke and needed to protect himself.”
Wayne and Justin MacBrown, together with Andrew C. Stenico, 20, of 12 Connor Ave., the half bother of Justin MacBrown’s former girlfriend, were arrested shortly after the incident and were arraigned Friday in district court where bail was set in each case at $1,000. The two MacBrowns posted bail and were released. Stenico was held without right to bail on two pending cases.
On Monday, when the two younger MacBrowns came to the police station they were interviewed and advised to go to Westfield District Court in the morning to answer the complaints.
Court staffers report that the two young men appeared but were told to return for arraignment Wednesday.
In an apparently related development, Justin MacBrown reported to police Tuesday afternoon that the firearms he had kept at the home of his former girlfriend had been stolen.
Office Stephen Gonglik reports that he spoke with the resident and who said that the guns were locked in her apartment and she did not want them.
Gonglik reports that three handguns were seized and are being held pending a reply to a notification of the incident from the Middlefield official who issued MacBrown a license to carry firearms.
