73-Year-Old Man Convicted in 1989 Framingham Rape and Kidnapping Cold Case

Two women, ages 18 and 29, were opening the Hit or Miss store on Route 9 in Framingham on Dec. 27, 1989, when Stephen Paul Gale walked in. He asked for help before pulling out a handgun, forced one of the employees to empty a locked safe, a cash register, and her purse into a bag, then confined both women into separate rooms and raped them while holding the gun to their heads. One of the victims grabbed a tissue, spit into it, folded it in a plastic Hit or Miss bag, and hid it. That tissue would take 36 years to do its work.

After a 12-day trial, Gale, 73, was convicted of four counts of aggravated rape, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of armed robbery in connection with the attack at the Hit or Miss store two days after Christmas in 1989. The Middlesex Superior Court jury returned its verdict, with sentencing scheduled for Monday, March 30, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. The defendant showed no emotion as the guilty verdicts were read.

One survivor testified about the moment Gale pressed a gun into her side and said, "I have a .357 magnum pointed at you. Don't do anything stupid or I'll blow you away." In her victim impact statement, she described the decades of fallout: "From that moment on, my life was never the same. I tried not to let that define me, but there were things I could not control. Insomnia, anxiety, panic attacks. Loud noises would send me running out of stores. These struggles followed me all my life." The other survivor told the court: "I was simply working a part-time job before returning to college. I didn't even know if I would survive that day. I was terrified. It has affected my entire family because when something like this happens to someone you love, it affects everyone."

Investigators developed a DNA profile from evidence collected at the scene and uploaded it to a national database in 2001. With the help of a genetic genealogy company, police in 2022 collected DNA samples from known members of Gale's family and identified him as the previously unidentified suspect. Middlesex prosecutors and Framingham Police contracted with Parabon Nanolabs to use investigative genetic genealogy to develop new leads. Gale was identified as a suspect in May 2024 and arrested three months later.

When police tried to arrest Gale, he led them on an 82-minute-long car chase through Los Angeles spanning 40 miles. Investigators said Gale had at least eight aliases, and U.S. Marshals found him living on a million-dollar yacht off the coast of California. Those aliases included Stephen Pisarcik, John Rossi, Paul Costa, Paul DeRosa, Paul DiCarli, Paul Joseph DeCarlo, Steve Miner, Paul Williams, and Paul Ptaszynski. He was ultimately arrested and brought back to Massachusetts.

Gale's defense attorneys said they plan to appeal the conviction. During trial, defense counsel argued that while Gale "may have been a slickster" and "a fraudster," that alone did not constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed the charged offenses.

Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan described the road to conviction at a press conference: "This investigation spanned more than three decades. It involved many false starts, ups and downs, and long periods without answers. Despite the passage of time, the victims in this case showed tremendous perseverance. They never gave up hope, and they never wavered in their pursuit of finding answers." "The survivors in this case demonstrated tremendous courage for more than three decades," Framingham Police Chief Lester Baker said. In May 2024, Ryan's office identified Gale as a suspect after forensic genetic genealogy linked him to the case.

Gale faces a sentence of up to a lifetime in prison. Although there were references during trial to other potential incidents and victims, when asked, Ryan said: "I am not aware of anything currently pending.