Elizabeth Scheibel

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Scheibel, born around 1956, is a Massachusetts lawyer who became the state’s first female district attorney. She led the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office from 1993 to 2011 and lived most of her life in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

She grew up in South Hadley and went to South Hadley High School. She earned a Bachelor of Science in psychobiology from Mount Holyoke College in 1977 and briefly considered becoming a veterinarian. She later studied law at Western New England College School of Law after meeting her future husband, Paul Boudreau, in law school.

Scheibel started her career in 1980 at the Hampden County District Attorney’s office and moved to the Northwestern District Attorney’s office in 1988. In 1993, after Judd Carhart was appointed to a judgeship, she was chosen to finish his term and was sworn in on the Mount Holyoke College campus. She won four elections as a Republican and faced no opposition.

As district attorney, Scheibel oversaw about 100 staff and a budget of around $5 million. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 while in office. One of her notable cases was the Phoebe Prince suicide case in 2011, which led the Boston Globe to name her a Bostonian of the Year.

Earlier in her career, she prosecuted Sean Seabrooks for stabbing his ex-girlfriend and their son; after the conviction, she helped promote Japan’s first anti-domestic violence law.

Scheibel retired in January 2012. In 2016, she was named to the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees, and she had previously chaired the board at Westfield State College. She remains a longtime South Hadley resident and has friendships with local figures such as John Scibak.