A husband and wife that police say were involved in a double shooting that left one of them dead and the other injured at a home on Martha’s Vineyard have Harvard connections.
According to statements from Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe’s office, Cynthia Bloomquist, of West Tisbury, shot and killed her husband, Kenneth Bloomquist, 64, in an act of self-defense the morning of Friday, March 23. The cause of death was gunshot wounds to the chest, the district attorney’s office says.
“Mr. Bloomquist sustained these wounds while assaulting his wife with a shotgun,” O’Keefe’s statement said. “During the incident, Mrs. Bloomquist sustained gunshot wounds in the area of her leg. She has been hospitalized.”
According to the district attorney’s office, Kenneth Bloomquist was living off the island prior to his death, and he broke into the home where his wife was living, at 19 Skiffs Lane, around 7:45 Friday morning.
According to a report in the Martha’s Vineyard Times, the Bloomquists were longtime seasonal residents of West Tisbury and owned the house on Skiffs Lane.
The Bloomquists are listed in the 2011 Harvard street list as living at an address on South Shaker Road. According to records on file with the Worcester County Registry of Deeds, the couple sold their Harvard property on Oct. 25, 2011, for $520,000.
Multiple online business listings name Kenneth Bloomquist as owner of the Harvard-based Harvard Images, an aerial photography company.
The couple was not divorced but was separated, according to several reports. Harvard Realty owner Rhonda Sprague, who handled the sale of the Bloomquist’s home, told the Press she believed Kenneth Bloomquist was having trouble accepting that his wife wanted a separation. The plan at the time of the sale of the their house, Sprague said, was for Cynthia to move permanently to Martha’s Vineyard and Kenneth to move to another home he owned in Rehoboth.
“I know, even at that time, he still wanted to be at the Vineyard,” Sprague said.
Sprague characterized Kenneth Bloomquist as “always cordial” in her dealings with him. “I never had any difficulty at all,” she said.
Cynthia Bloomquist, Sprague said, is a “delight” and a “very bright person.”
“I can tell you that she would never have wanted Ken gone. I think that she would have wanted them to continue a friendship,” Sprague said. “…I don’t think she wished him bad or anything.”
The Bloomquists bought their house in Harvard in 1986, according to county records.
