Boston Police logged the call at 1:52 p.m. on Saturday, July 18. It came in as an “investigate person” call, cop shorthand for going to check on someone. The address was 25 Malta Street in the Mattapan neighborhood. When officers arrived, they found a person dead. By that evening the yard was wrapped in red-and-yellow crime scene tape, a cruiser sat out front, and the case had been handed to the department’s Homicide Unit.
Then came the detail that turned a local death investigation into national news. City property records show the seven-bedroom house belongs to Conan Harris, the husband of Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. Police have said very little about the circumstances, but the address alone put this story on front pages far outside Boston.
A Blue House With a Fresh White Picket Fence
From the street, 25 Malta Street looks like any well-kept rental. It’s a two-story blue home, built back in 1910, fronted by a freshly painted white picket fence. A for-sale sign was propped up in the yard when the body was found. The listing describes a multi-family property with room for tenants on more than one floor.
Neighbors watched the scene unfold in real time. “We got home and there were police coming down the street, they blocked it off with crime tape over there and neighbors were gathered around,” a woman named Ari who lives on the block told a local station. She added that she had chatted with the realtor after the for-sale sign went up and described the house as well maintained.
The Price Nearly Tripled in Four Years
The money side of this property is its own story. Harris bought the house for $340,000 in 2021. This year it carries a city assessment of more than $919,000, up from $512,300 back when he purchased it. Now it’s listed for sale at $1.15 million through Thumbprint Realty, more than three times what he paid four years ago.
The realtor handling the sale, Chantae Turner, said the home had been on the market for about a month and that the current tenants had lived there “for a while.” On-scene officers declined to say whether anyone was staying at the house when Saturday’s call came in.
Who Is Conan Harris?
Conan Harris, 49, married Pressley in 2014. His life story is a big part of why his name carries weight in Boston. He served 10 years in prison on a drug trafficking conviction. After his release, he rebuilt his career in public service. He worked as a safety consultant for the City of Boston, served as a senior public safety adviser at City Hall, and became executive director of a community outreach nonprofit called My Brother’s Keeper.
In 2019 he left his City Hall role and started his own consulting firm. Records show 25 Malta Street had been listed as that company’s business address at one point. Harris has spent years as a public advocate for criminal justice reform and for people trying to restart their lives after prison, a cause he has championed alongside his wife.
On the same Saturday morning the body was found, Harris was across town at a public event. He attended a renaming ceremony at the Shaw-Roxbury Branch Library, dedicated to Sarah-Ann Shaw, Boston’s first female Black TV reporter. He delivered remarks at the podium on behalf of Pressley.
Neighbors Say Police Raided the Same House Two Months Ago
Here’s the piece that has people asking questions. According to a neighbor, Boston Police raided this exact house roughly two months before the body turned up, which would put it about a month before Harris and Pressley listed the property for sale. The same neighbor said there were tenants on each floor at the time of that raid, including high-school-aged teenagers.
Boston Police have not publicly confirmed that earlier raid, have not said who or what it targeted, and have not addressed whether any charges came out of it. The department also has not said whether the two events are connected in any way. Right now it’s a neighbor’s account, reported by the local press, with no official confirmation attached to it.
The Rental Income Behind the Property
Federal financial disclosures give a look at how much this house was earning. The 25 Malta Street property brought Harris and Pressley as much as $100,000 in rental income during 2025. And that’s just one address.
The couple’s disclosures list rental income from four Massachusetts properties last year totaling roughly $350,000. On top of that, they reported proceeds from the sale of a Fort Lauderdale home valued at between $50,000 and $100,000. They also own an Edgartown property on Martha’s Vineyard listed at $1.1 million, which produced between $15,001 and $50,000 in rent last year. The disclosure filings paint a picture of a family with a real estate portfolio spread across two states.
Harris and Pressley Both Responded
Harris addressed the situation the same day in a Facebook post. “Thank you Everyone for the care and concern, our family is safe,” he wrote. “My heart goes out to the family that lost a loved one today in Mattapan.”
Pressley’s office issued a short statement of its own. “The Congresswoman extends her deepest condolences to the impacted family,” a spokesperson said Saturday night. The spokesperson also said neither the congresswoman nor her family were involved in the incident. It’s worth keeping in mind that Pressley and Harris do not live at the Mattapan house. Their home is in the Hyde Park neighborhood, and 25 Malta Street is strictly a rental property.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu spoke about it briefly on Sunday at an event in Roxbury. “I know the situation is still under investigation, and Boston police are diligently trying to pursue the information they can get,” she said. Pressley first took office in 2018, when she defeated longtime incumbent Michael Capuano in a primary. She represents Massachusetts’ 7th Congressional District and is a founding member of the progressive House group known as “The Squad,” alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. Harris is the father of a daughter, and Pressley is her stepmother, according to records reviewed by reporters.
What Police Still Haven’t Said
As of now, the list of unanswered questions is long. Boston Police have not released the identity, age, or sex of the person who died. They have not said how the person died or when. They have not said whether the death is being treated as suspicious, whether foul play is suspected, or whether Harris or anyone connected to the household was present when the body was found. No arrests have been announced.
What we do have is the official label. Police spokesperson Officer James Moccia confirmed the Homicide Unit is handling the matter, and Sergeant Detective John Boyle described it as a “death investigation.” That’s not the same as calling it a murder. In Boston, the Homicide Unit routinely takes on death investigations before anyone knows whether a crime even occurred. On Sunday, the department confirmed it had no additional information to share.
So this is where things stand. A person is dead inside a rental house that a sitting member of Congress and her husband own, a house that was raided two months earlier according to a neighbor, and one that’s currently listed for more than a million dollars. The family says it’s safe and not involved. Investigators are keeping the details close. Until police release the identity of the deceased and say more about how the person died, the rest is just a taped-off yard, a for-sale sign, and a lot of open questions.
