A 41-year-old Milford man was taken into custody on Oct. 21 in connection with a 2024 crash on Mystic Street in Arlington that led to the death of a 62-year-old Northborough woman.
Milford Police said that Robert Laspesa was taken into custody shortly after 10 p.m. at his home on Main Street in Milford on Tuesday night on a Middlesex Superior Court warrant for charges including motor vehicle homicide and operating while under the influence of liquor during the accident that happened on Sept. 9, 2024.
Laspesa was later transferred to the Arlington Police Department, according to the Milford Daily News, and was taken to court the next day.
“After an investigation, Laspesa was subsequently charged with multiple motor vehicle offenses. A warrant was then issued for his arrest,” said Capt. Richard Flynn of the Arlington Police Department told WCVB-TV.
Tracey Alexander, 62, of Northborough, died after she was taken to a hospital about 4 p.m. Monday, Sept. 9, after a van, driven by Laspesa, in which she was being transported in a wheelchair crashed into a utility pole on the south side of Mystic Street near the Bishop School and Winchester town line, according to the YourArlington police log published on Sept. 12, 2024.
The impact split the pole in two and spilled broken wires and a transformer onto the asphalt. The 40-year-old van driver, who was listed as being from Somerville at the time but now identified as Laspesa, escaped with minor injuries and told officers he “couldn’t remember” the crash. Laspesa told police at the time of the accident that he missed a turn and then attempted to make a three-point turn when he crashed.
A private company owns and operates the 2019 transport van. Police did not release the names of the woman and the company, according to the 2024 report.
EMT personnel examined the woman, saw that she appeared to have sustained a head injury and sent her by ambulance to a local hospital. An updated APD report said the woman had been transferred later in the day to a Boston hospital, where she had died that night, according to the original YourArlington report. When first reported in a YourArlington police log report in 2024, Arlington police did not identify the woman and listed her as being from Lexington.
This news report, published Oct. 24, 2025, was prepared using published reports, police reports, and YourArlington’s archives.
