Body Found at Boston Rental Property Owned by Rep. Ayanna Pressley's Husband, Homicide Unit Investigating

Boston homicide detectives are investigating after a dead body was discovered Saturday at a rental property in the city's Mattapan neighborhood owned by Conan Harris, the husband of Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley.

Police spokesperson Officer James Moccia told CBS News Boston that officers were dispatched to the home at 25 Malta Street at 1:52 p.m. Saturday for what was initially called an "investigate person" report. When officers arrived, they found the person dead, according to Moccia.

The call was reclassified as a death investigation, according to Boston Police Sergeant Detective John Boyle. A police cruiser sat outside the house Saturday evening, and the property was sealed with red crime scene tape, CBS News Boston reported.

As of Saturday night, Boston police have not released the identity of the person found dead, the person's gender, or a cause of death. No suspects have been named and no charges have been filed.

City of Boston property records list Harris as the owner of the two-story house, according to CBS News Boston. The home was built in 1910, has seven bedrooms, and carries an assessed value of $919,000. The Boston Herald reported additional detail, describing it as an eight-bedroom, four-bath, 2,713-square-foot property. Neither figure has been independently reconciled, but both outlets agree the home is large enough to house multiple families and was being used as a rental.

The property is currently listed for sale at $1.15 million, according to CBS News Boston. Pressley and Harris do not live there.

A neighbor identified only as Cherill told the Boston Globe, as cited by the New York Post, that the property was raided by Boston police roughly two months before Saturday's discovery. No further detail on that earlier raid, including what it involved or whether it produced any charges, has been confirmed by police in the sources reviewed here.

Hindustan Times reported that Harris was at the Shaw-Roxbury Branch Library on Saturday to speak at an event on Pressley's behalf, citing Mass Daily News. Pressley's own whereabouts Saturday have not been disclosed.

A spokesperson for Pressley issued a statement Saturday night saying the congresswoman "extends her deepest condolences to the impacted family," according to CBS News Boston. Neither Pressley nor Harris has made a personal, on-record statement beyond that release, and police have not linked either of them to the death.

Harris has a public record independent of his marriage to Pressley. According to Hindustan Times, he was convicted on drug trafficking charges as a young man and served roughly 10 years in prison. Since his release, he has built a career in criminal justice reform work, including managing StreetSafe Boston and serving as deputy director of Public Safety Initiatives under former Boston Mayor Martin Walsh. He testified before a U.S. House subcommittee in 2020 about challenges facing people returning from incarceration. He and Pressley married in 2014.

Pressley, a Democrat and member of the House's progressive "Squad," has represented Massachusetts' 7th Congressional District since 2019, after defeating longtime incumbent Michael Capuano in a 2018 primary.

Coverage so far has been consistent on the basic facts: the 911 call time, the address, the reclassification to a death investigation, and the property's ownership and sale listing. TMZ's initial writeup, flagged as "developing," added no facts beyond what Boston police confirmed to other outlets. None of the reporting reviewed here establishes any connection between the death and Pressley or Harris personally, and none identifies the deceased.

The open questions are straightforward: who died, how, and why the death occurred at a rental property that was reportedly raided by Boston police two months earlier. Boston's homicide unit has not said when it expects to release the victim's identity or a cause of death. Until the medical examiner's office and police provide that information, any characterization of this as a homicide or any suggestion of wrongdoing by the property's owner would be getting ahead of what investigators have actually confirmed.