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A 42-year-old man has been charged with murder and animal cruelty after allegedly striking and killing the art collector and his dog.
A man is facing murder charges after allegedly he drove into the Commonwealth Mall in Back Bay Saturday morning, striking and killing a well-known art collector and his dog before fleeing.
Prosecutors allege William Haney, 42, “intentionally” hit John Axelrod, 79, while he was walking his dog on Commonwealth Avenue Mall, a boulevard-style park the stretches from Kenmore Square to the Public Garden.
Boston police responded just after 8 a.m. Saturday to the intersection of Commonwealth Avenue and Hereford Street to a report of a pedestrian struck after a driver entered the mall. The driver, later identified as Haney, had fled the scene, Boston police said.
The pedestrian, identified as Axelrod by prosecutors, was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Axelrod was an honorary advisor at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, where a gallery was named in his honor in 2009.
With the vehicle’s registration information, police in Brookline located the vehicle unoccupied. After an investigation, police arrested Haney. Haney, a Boston resident, is expected to be arraigned on charges of murder and cruelty to animals, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office announced Sunday.
Axelrod, 79, was a prominent art collector and philanthropist, with an eponymous collection of African American artwork at the MFA, the museum confirmed in a statement.
“A generous supporter and passionate advocate for underrepresented artists, John had been a part of the MFA family since the 1980s,” the museum said. “His legacy will live on at the Museum through the John Axelrod Collection — a transformative acquisition of nearly 70 works by Black artists.”
Featured in The Boston Globe in the early 2010s, Axelrod shared his love of art and passion for collecting. He grew up in Andover and attended Phillips Academy, Yale University, and Harvard Law School. He also ran a fashion company, the newspaper reported at the time.
“The fact that these artists were black or whatever didn’t make a difference,’’ he told the Globe about seven works by important Black artists he sold to the Museum. “They were great artists.”
The MFA said Axelrod also gave the museum a “substantial collection of 20th-century European decorative arts, including numerous examples of Memphis Group designs, and, between 2008-2015, some 377 pieces of American Modern design from the 1920s and ’30s.”
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