John Hallett busted for strangling roommate, dismembering body

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A man allegedly killed his roommate whom he suspected of stealing mail — and kept his body in a basement for nearly two months before dismembering him with a hacksaw, according to a report.

John Hallett, 48, was arrested on Thursday in Cambridge, Mass., for the 2017 murder of Paul Gonzales in their Michigan City, Indiana, home, according to a report by the Times of Northwest Indiana.

Hallett — an amputee — reached out to Michigan City Police Detective Lt. Anna Painter last August and allegedly admitted that he used a crutch to clobber Gonzales from behind before strangling him on Nov. 25, 2017.

“John believed that Paul was stealing his mail and that Paul was trying to get him kicked out of the house,” Painter said in an affidavit, cited by the outlet.

The alleged killer first moved Gonzales’ corpse into a bedroom for a few days, then moved the body to the basement, where he kept it for 56 days before taking a hacksaw to it, according to the affidavit.

Hallett allegedly dismembered and disemboweled the body, placing the parts in trash bags and dumping them in public trash cans around the city, according to Painter and Michigan City police.

Police used cadaver dogs and lab testing to confirm that Gonzalez’s body had been kept in the basement, Painter said.

She received the arrest warrant for Hallett on Aug. 8, leading authorities to track him down in the Bay State.

He was awaiting extradition to Indiana in the Middlesex Jail & House of Correction on charges of murder and abuse of a corpse.

Hallett and Gonzales — who were then homeless — were placed in the residence together by a local nonprofit in 2015.

Neighbors on the quiet street in Cambridge were shocked to see cops arresting Hallett and to learn what he was accused of.

“There was a commotion out front of the building that’s across the street and a man walking out in handcuffs, which caught my eye as unusual,” resident Lindsay Garito told Boston 25 News last week.

“He looked about as normal as they come, he was calm, he just walked out of his building in a large group,” Garito said.

“Just thinking of living that close to someone that’s taken another human’s life is definitely unsettling,” she added.

Another neighbor, Alex Majetich, told media: “I was walking to the gym and I saw probably like 20 men in bulletproof vests and I assumed they were shooting a movie or something because this stuff like doesn’t happen around here.”