The Massachusetts Parole Board has granted parole to Katherine McGlincy, 74, formerly known as Katherine Dickson, who was 40 when she murdered Pembroke residents Lillian and Eero Helin in their home on December 3, 1992.
The board’s September 10, 2026, decision authorizes parole to a long-term residential program addressing mental health and substance misuse needs, effective 45 days after the decision. McGlincy previously was denied parole in 2008, 2011, 2016, 2021 and 2025.
Lillian Helin was 65, and her husband, Eero, was 72.
According to reporting by Neal Simpson in The Patriot Ledger in June 2016, McGlincy had smoked crack cocaine for much of the day before stealing her father’s handgun and going to the Helins’ home off Hobomock Street. Prosecutors said she intended to rob the couple to obtain money for more drugs.
Lillian, a friend of McGlincy’s family, allowed her inside. McGlincy demanded the couple’s money at gunpoint. After Lillian gathered and surrendered it, McGlincy forced her to lie on the floor and shot her three times in the back.
McGlincy then went upstairs to Eero’s bedroom. Parkinson’s disease had severely limited his strength and mobility. He died from suffocation, although McGlincy has repeatedly said she does not remember killing him.
The Ledger reported that, at her 2016 parole hearing, McGlincy said she remembered throwing Eero a pillow. She also said that, after reviewing investigative records, she had concluded she must have killed him.
Six weeks after the murders, while the case remained unsolved, Mark Walther, a 36-year-old Pembroke resident, picked up McGlincy as she was hitchhiking. According to the Ledger, she shot him four times and stole his car. Walther survived, and police arrested McGlincy at a roadblock.
On September 1, 1994, McGlincy pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and received concurrent life sentences with the possibility of parole. Attorney Kevin Reddington represented her. She also pleaded guilty to firearm and armed assault charges connected with the Walther shooting. She changed her surname from Dickson to McGlincy while in prison.
Her efforts to obtain parole were repeatedly unsuccessful. In its October 2021 coverage, Ledger reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite wrote that five of six board members voted against release. One favored parole to a long-term residential treatment program.
The board found that McGlincy continued to offer differing versions of her crimes, minimized her criminal behavior and had not developed sufficient insight into her responsibility.
According to the Ledger’s account of that decision, McGlincy told the board she had been suicidal and intended to provoke police into killing her. She also acknowledged withholding information from her therapist because recalling her crimes was difficult.
The board expressed concern about a broader pattern of violence. The Ledger reported that Parole Board General Counsel Pamela Murphy cited both the Walther shooting and an earlier attack in which McGlincy stabbed a preacher during a prayer service in 1986 because she disliked the way he preached.
In 2025, the board again denied parole, citing concerns about McGlincy’s plans for returning to the community, limited support, and the need to address her mental health and substance misuse needs.
In granting parole this year, the board cited a comprehensive re-entry plan, community supports, a forensic evaluation, and her institutional record. It also considered her reported sobriety of more than 32 years and approximately 20 years of medication compliance.
Two members of the victims’ family and a Plymouth County assistant district attorney testified against parole.
The approval requires placement in a long-term residential treatment program. Additional conditions include six months of electronic monitoring and a nighttime curfew, drug and alcohol testing, mental health counseling, and no contact with the victims’ family.
