Wood, a city native and longtime department member, took over leadership of the NAPD in 2019, following the 15-year tenure of former chief Michael Cozzaglio. Earlier this month, North Adams Mayor Jennifer Macksey confirmed that Wood had been placed on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation into a non-criminal incident. Lieutenant Anthony Beverly took over as interim chief at that time.
On Saturday, Macksey announced that Wood’s contract would not be renewed later this year as she had “lost trust and confidence in his abilities to lead the North Adams Police Department.” Macksey said Beverly will continue to run the department on an interim basis and that she had no further comment on the matter.
Wood, whose salary is over $91,000 for fiscal year 2023, will remain on paid administrative leave until the end of his contract on June 30.
To shed some light on the chaotic end to Wood’s time as police chief in North Adams, WAMC filed a public records request. In fragments, the files produced by the request reveal a tumultuous domestic drama spilling out into the chief’s professional life.
The heavily redacted 31-page document released to WAMC begins with the report of acting chief Beverly.
On March 6, a North Adams man called the police to tell them that Wood, who was in a relationship with his wife, intended to visit their home on Birchwood Terrace. This was followed by a subsequent call from the woman in question who also requested a police presence at the home.
Given that Wood was the head of the department in question, state troopers ended up responding to the household in addition to officers from the NAPD. The situation was handled peacefully, and law enforcement found nothing criminal had occurred.
The report about the incident notes that Wood, when reached by phone about the situation that day, said that he was aware of what was going on, that it was “blown out of proportion,” but that “it doesn’t look good.” It also mentions emails between Wood and the woman he was conducting the affair with that include the chief telling her to “fool” her spouse, though redaction obscures about what specifically.
A police report from March 10 details an incident where Wood’s wife Kelley Wilson-Wood called the police after seeing the woman with whom Wood was in an extramarital relationship at the entrance of their Corinth Street home on their Ring home security camera.
While referred to as Wilson-Wood in some of the official records WAMC received, she currently identifies as simply Kelley Wilson on Facebook.
In the report, Wilson-Wood confirms that Wood and the woman had been in a relationship “for some time.” Wilson-Wood had concerns that the woman’s presence at their home would result in an altercation with her children. At the time, her daughter was home alone and her son was about to be dropped off from school. Wilson-Wood framed the 911 call as a check on the daughter’s safety.
Interestingly, the report notes that Macksey also responded to the scene of the Woods’ home on Corinth Street after the call. The mayor told WAMC that she was in the vicinity of the household and stopped by when she saw cruisers outside of it. By the time officers arrived, the woman with whom Wood was in the extramarital relationship was gone.
Emails between Wood and the woman underscore the fraught nature of their relationship. In a March 10 email, the woman tells Wood he could potentially be called to testify as a witness in her divorce. The woman suggests she was called to his home by Wilson-Wood to talk, and alludes to her “hounding” her to talk and bombarding her with voicemails. The email includes her plea for Wood to “please don’t stay mad at me forever, I still remember how [good] friends [we] were and are. Don’t loose that but the litigation process [has] started so I can’t talk until my divorce is finalized.”
The email ends with “love you stay strong good luck on your end.”
Another message directed at Wood amidst some of the most heavily redacted segments of the records says simply “I want NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU EVER AGAIN. You burned me- you lied to me for years.”
In a March 9 communication between the woman and Wood, she claims that Wilson-Wood has been “harassing” her, says that she’s happy Wood’s job is safe, and says she will try to “protect [him] the best she can.” Messages from earlier in the day show her distress about texts and calls from Wilson-Wood and an associate, telling Wood that “things have gotten too far now” and that he had “really f’d me over majorly.”
On March 11, the woman emailed Wood with the subject line “Did you loose your job?” In the message, she alludes to her husband paying off Mayor Macksey and creating lies to have Wood – along with another city employee and others aware of the situation – fired. In a longer, heavily redacted email titled “She showed him the journal,” the woman alludes to someone being shown a journal that includes an entry saying that Wood beat an unspecified person “to a bloody mess.”
The woman accuses Wood of abandoning her despite their close relationship, and says that it is unfair that anyone lose their job over the affair as it was conducted on personal time. The email also includes her fears that their spouses are working together to have them “loose everything,” and the feeling that she should contact Macksey herself about the situation. There is also a reference to the North Adams police union choosing to not back Wood in the situation.
Despite all of this, Macksey tells WAMC that it wasn’t Wood’s domestic entanglements but an unrelated personnel issue she could not comment on that ultimately cost the chief his job.
When reached for comment by WAMC, Kelley Wilson-Wood said that she and Jason Wood had retained lawyers and would not make any statements at this time.
Interim Chief Beverly of the NAPD told WAMC that the department would not comment on the matter.
City Council President Lisa Hall Blackmer told WAMC that she had no comment on the situation other than to express confidence in how Mayor Macksey chose to address it.