Man Accused Of 1971 Murder Was First Eyed As Suspect In 1999

BEDFORD, MA — The 76-year-old Salem man arrested Tuesday and accused of brutally killing a housewife in her Bedford home in 1971 was first eyed as a suspect in the 1971 murder in 1999, when investigators matched his fingerprints to one found on the door of the victim's 1969 Chevy Impala.

At the time, Arthur Massei denied having ever been to Bedford or having any knowledge of the killing. In subsequent interviews, Massei claimed an organized crime associate asked him to kill Natalie Scheublin, the wife of a banker, and make it look like a break-in. Massei told investigators he passed on the hit.

But, using new fingerprint technology and grand jury testimony from a new witness, the Middlesex District Attorney's office secured an indictment and arrested Massei on Tuesday without incident. On Wednesday, he pleaded not guilty to a first degree murder charge and was ordered held without bail.

Natalie Scheublin, a 51-year-old mother of two, was found bound, gagged, beaten, and fatally stabbed in both sides of her neck in the basement of her home on Pine Hill Road in Bedford on June 10, 1971 by her husband, Raymond Scheublin.

Raymond Scheublin, who was president of the Lexington Trust Bank, was eliminated as a suspect early in the investigation. He died in 2011 at the age of 92

"It's bittersweet to call a family 50 years later," Middlesex District Attorney Marion Ryan said Tuesday at a press conference with Bedford Police Chief Ken Fong to announce the arrest in the cold case. "Mr. Sheublin died never knowing what happened to his wife. "

Ryan renewed the focus of her office's cold case unit on the Scheublin murder in 2019. Bedford police and Massachusetts State Police detectives assigned to her office reexamined all the evidence while digging into Massei's past. As part of that effort, an informant told detectives she and Massei worked together to defraud banks in the 1990s. She said Massai had bragged about once killing someone with a knife.

Investigators said Natalie Scheublin's 1969 Chevy Impala, which was found at the Bedford VA Hospital, had been wiped for fingerprints. But new technology allowed detectives to find a print on the door handle in 1999, putting Massei on their radar.

Massei was also arrested by Salem police in 2012 and charged with possession of a class A substance.

Massei is due back in court April 28.

Patch writer Jimmy Bentley contributed to this report.