When police told Michael Bradley last year that his daughter was dead, he thought immediately of Chhoeut Chin, a man whom he said his daughter had confided was beating her.
“I said, ‘Well, it’s gotta be him,’ ” said Bradley. Chin wanted a romantic relationship with his daughter, 32-year-old Sherry Bradley, but she did not share his feelings, Bradley said. “He’d find her wherever she was.”
Sherry was found dead Aug. 1, 2013, at 800 Border St. in East Boston. More than a year later, on Friday, members of the Boston police fugitive unit arrested 42-year-old Lynn resident Chin in Lowell and charged him with her murder.
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Boston police have not released information about how Sherry was killed.
The medical examiner did not declare her death a homicide until April of this year. Boston Police spokeswoman Officer Rachel McGuire said the delay was “due to the investigation and the process that the medical examiner’s office goes through with the autopsy.”
Chin has not yet been appointed an attorney, and it was not immediately clear if he had retained his own lawyer.
Attempts to reach his family and friends Saturday were unsuccessful. One man listed in a public records database as an associate of Chin said he did not know anything.
More information will be released at Chin’s arraignment in East Boston District Court on Monday, McGuire said.
Police have described Chin as Sherry Bradley’s former boyfriend, but her father said that, as far as he knew, the two never dated.
Michael Bradley said he has never been told how his daughter died.
“I have no idea,” he said. “The only thing they do is tell me where they found her.”
Bradley said he met Chin just once, at a family barbecue July 3, 2013. They talked for maybe 10 minutes, he said, and Chin complimented him on his backyard and his family.
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“He said he liked Sherry, a good girl, and all that. . . . And that was about it,” he said.
He said Sherry sometimes stayed with Chin, but she was living in a rented room with another woman in Lynn, where she had been born and raised.
The day after the barbeque, Bradley said, his daughter came back to his house and was planning to stay there but said Chin had stolen all her belongings. Sherry told her mother that Chin had beaten her on several occasions.
After Sherry’s death, Bradley said, a friend whose phone she often borrowed called to say that Chin had sent Sherry 200 text messages leading up to her death threatening to kill her and warning her that “You ain’t gonna make it tonight.”
Bradley said his son took the messages to police.
Sherry had four children, who she loved to take to play areas like Bonkers, said Bradley. She worked as an administrative assistant, and loved music and dancing, he said.
Bradley said that Sherry’s children, now aged 2 to 14, are doing relatively well.
“Well, it’s been a year. So we’re not doing too bad. Time heals,” he said. “But everybody misses her.”
Evan Allen can be reached at evan.allen@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @evanmallen.