Prisoner charged with armed assault with intent to murder after attack left CO Matthew Tidman on life support

WOBURN – Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan has announced that Roy Booth, 40, has been charged with armed assault with intent to murder, assault and battery causing serious bodily injury and mayhem in connection with an August attack on Matthew Tidman, a Corrections Officer at Massachusetts Corrections Institution-Shirley.

Booth was indicted today by a Middlesex Grand Jury. He will be arraigned in Middlesex Superior Court at a later date in October.

“This incident highlights the dangers corrections officers face every day while performing their duties,” said District Attorney Marian Ryan. “Officer Tidman still has a very long road ahead of him and we know that this frightening incident of workplace violence will have a lasting impact on his family and colleagues.”

The preliminary investigation suggests that shortly after 2:00 p.m. on August 31, 2022, the defendant was in the recreation facility in the medium security area at MCI – Shirley when he took a metal pole, that weighed between 10-15 pounds, and attacked Officer Tidman, who was monitoring the inmates, striking him multiple times.

Tidman’s fellow corrections officers restrained Booth after the attack and provided aid to Officer Tidman who was transported by Medical Flight to Lahey Hospital in Burlington where he has been in intensive care since his arrival. Booth was immediately transferred to protective custody at MCI-Souza Baranowski, a facility adjacent to MCI-Shirley.

As part of the investigation into this incident the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office and Massachusetts State Police Detectives assigned to the District Attorney’s Office obtained video of the incident and conducted interviews at the facility. The subsequent investigation revealed that Booth allegedly unscrewed the object used to strike Officer Tidman, which had been part of a weight-lifting apparatus, and concealed it as he approached and then attacked.

Booth is presently serving a Life sentence for murder out of Virginia. He had been transferred to Massachusetts in March 2021 to serve his sentence as part of the Interstate Corrections Compact, in which, in certain circumstances, inmates are transferred between states.

Currently, Tidman is on life support after being transported by med flight to a hospital.

The prosecutors assigned to this case are Thomas Brant and Yashmeen Desai and the victim witness advocate is Susie Marshall.