North Carolina man sentenced to prison for kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Massachusetts girl

A jury has convicted a North Carolina man of kidnapping and murdering a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl in Kingston in 1986, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz announced.

After a 12-day trial in Brockton Superior Court, the jury deliberated for five and a half hours before finding Michael Hand, now 69, guilty of first-degree murder. Judge Katie Cook Rayburn sentenced Hand to the mandatory term of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Tracy Gilpin was reported missing by her family on October 2nd, 1986. Her body was discovered three weeks later, on October 22nd, in Myles Standish State Park in Plymouth. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined she died from a massive skull fracture, and her death was ruled a homicide.

For more than 32 years, Massachusetts State Police detectives assigned to the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office, along with the Plymouth and Kingston police departments, continued investigating the case. In March 2018, investigators developed information that Hand, a former Kingston resident then living in North Carolina, was a potential witness. Working with local North Carolina police, they interviewed him over several days. During those interviews, Hand made statements that investigators said amounted to admissions. He told police he had hosted a gathering at his home the night Gilpin was last seen, that he knew her from the neighborhood, and that he had been at the crime scene in Myles Standish State Park. Hand specifically admitted picking up a 73-pound boulder and dropping it on Gilpin, and he identified the rock in evidence photos. Based on those statements, he was arrested on March 9, 2018, as a fugitive from justice, waived rendition, and was returned to Massachusetts.

“The Gilpin family made it their mission to see that justice was done on behalf of Tracy,” DA Cruz said. “They never gave up hope in this pursuit, and today we got that justice. I commend investigators with the Massachusetts State Police and North Carolina Police on their work on this case. I am hopeful that Tracy can now rest in peace knowing that her killer will spend the rest of his life in prison.”

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Jennifer Sprague and Shanan Buckingham, with assistance from Deputy Director of Victim Services Karen Fahy. It was investigated by State Police detectives assigned to the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office, with support from the Kingston and Plymouth police departments and the Troutman and Mooresville, North Carolina police departments.