A former Bay State man is facing up to 16 years in prison for the death of a 29-year-old woman who was found in a Boston hotel in March 2020.
Maine man Aaron Parsons, 47, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and engaging in sexual conduct for a fee. He was sentenced on Thursday to 14-16 years in state prison, followed by three years of probation.
The case goes back to the onset of the COVID pandemic. On March 13, 2020, Sarah Dorany was found unresponsive on the floor inside a room at the Verb Hotel on Boylston Street. She was originally from Fitchburg.
Hotel staff found Dorany with a pillow covering her face. The pillow was somewhat curved and fitted to the contour of her face, with some dark smudges that appeared to be makeup.
Suffolk DA prosecutors said Parsons and Dorany met online and planned to meet at Eastern Standard in Kenmore Square. Parsons booked a room at the Verb Hotel for them to “hook-up” after.
Video footage from the hotel shows Parsons and Dorany enter the lobby together at about 8:20 p.m. on March 11.
Then three hours later, video from the Hynes Convention Center MBTA station shows Parsons walking through the gates.
Parsons is then spotted entering his apartment building in Revere shortly before midnight for about 20 minutes. He’s then seen leaving the building and returning about three hours later, wearing different clothing.
Shortly after 7 a.m., he’s spotted leaving his apartment building before entering the Wonderland MBTA station.
Parsons traveled to the area of Drydock Avenue in the Seaport, where he’s seen on video discarding his phone.
Parsons told investigators that he did not remember anything between going to the bathroom at Eastern Standard on March 11 and waking up underneath a bridge in the area of Fresh Pond in Cambridge on March 15.
On July 28, 2020, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Dorany’s cause of death to be mechanical asphyxiation.
Dorany’s family and friends attended the sentencing hearing over Zoom from Germany on Thursday.
In her victim impact statement, Dorany’s mother wrote: “The loss of her is not only my loss, it is a loss for a lot people, it is a loss for the world.”
Dorany’s younger sister described her as “my hero, a shining personality, a bright star, a real brave human being.”
“Courtrooms are places where measures of justice can occur, and they’re also places where the pain and anguish of a victim’s loved ones are expressed in heartbreaking words, as happened here with Sarah Dorany’s mother and sister,” Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden said in a statement. “I thank them for their moving remembrances and I offer them my deepest condolences.”