Court docs: 15-year-old confessed to murder, decapitation

LAWRENCE, Mass. — A 15-year-old charged with murder told a friend he stabbed his classmate and cut his head off, according to court documents.

In a police report obtained by FOX25, investigators say Mathew Borges, 15, was the last person to see Lee Viloria-Paulino alive. Mathew allegedly told police he and Lee, a classmate at Lawrence High School, had gone down to the Merrimack River to smoke marijuana on the evening of Friday, Nov. 18.

But Mathew said he left Lee there and went straight home, according to police.

Mathew told police he and Lee liked the way the boat house on the river lit up at night and that's why they went to smoke there. Investigators say Mathew told them he left Lee there at 7 p.m. that evening and Lee wasn't seen again until his decapitated body was found along the river on Dec. 1.

Police say a tipster told them Mathew had confessed to killing Lee.

"Mathew then told him that he stabbed a kid and cut his head off, killing him," the report states. "When Mathew said this, he was motioning with his hands as if he was stabbing someone and cutting someone's head off."

Lee's mother told FOX25's Bob Ward after the arraignment that she had been trying to move out of the city with her son.

“I was trying to have him leave Lawrence, because I didn't like Lawrence. I thought he let himself be influenced too easily. Thinking that everybody was nice and naive as him. So I didn't want us to be here,” Katiuska Paulino said.

Mathew was arrested on Saturday and had been held on $250,000 cash bail.

He pleaded not guilty Monday morning and is now being held without bail. Mathew is due back in court in January.

Police initially told FOX25 Mathew Borges was 16, the arrest report shows he is 15. 

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