By RUSS OLIVO

WOONSOCKET — Homicide victim Melissa Perry met the man accused of killing her on the social networking Web site myspace.com five months ago, family members told The Times yesterday.

Jo-Ann Boyer of Pawtucket, the victim's mother, said David P. Leite seemed “responsible and kind” until the last couple of weeks, when he suddenly became very controlling and suspicious of her daughter. He opened her e-mails, sent her text messages during her breaks at work and questioned her every move, even when she stepped outside her apartment to smoke a cigarette.
“I think he was just a mistake,” said Boyer. “I think she was afraid of him. I don't think she thought her life was in danger, but I think he realized she was going to leave him.”
Melissa, who was 32 years old, had three children between the ages of 7 and 14 who were living with her estranged husband, said Boyer. She also had two sisters, including Tina Ndiaye of Woonsocket.
Leite, 33, is accused of repeatedly stabbing Melissa to death during an altercation in the third-floor apartment they shared briefly at 33 Ormond St., a quiet neighborhood of well-kept tenements and single-families near Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church in Park Square. Police discovered the body Saturday morning after Leite crashed his car into a tree in Lincoln and he told responding officers to look for a deceased woman in the apartment.
Leite is now charged with domestic first-degree murder and remains held without bail at the ACI pending a review hearing on March 30.
Boyer said that until roughly three weeks ago, Melissa had been living with her in an apartment on Broadway in Pawtucket.
Melissa had been unemployed for at least four months and finally landed a job as a certified nursing assistant at Mount St. Francis Nursing Home on Maple Street.
A pretty brunette with dark, deep-set eyes, Melissa had searched everywhere for a job, to no avail, until the nursing home offered her a position. She moved to the apartment on Ormond Street to be close to the job. She walked back and forth to the nursing home, about a mile away, every day.
It wasn't just any job to Melissa, said Boyer. It was the job she wanted to do, and she was thrilled to have it. She felt that it was a turning point for her, and looked forward to getting her personal affairs back in order.
“She loved taking care of the elderly people and they loved her,” said Boyer. “She was doing a good job. She was ecstatic. She was getting her life back on track and getting her life back together the way she wanted it to be.”
Melissa’s aunt, Karen Wagner of Cumberland, said her niece was grateful to be working again. She said Melissa had always worked hard and didn't like the feeling of being unemployed.
“In this economy, to get a job, first of all, was pretty top, and she was pretty happy she was able to find a job and get back on her feet,” said Wagner.
Wagner — Boyer's sister — said that Melissa moved into the top story of the Ormond Street three-decker alone — at least at first.  Leite had been living with his mother in an apartment on High Street in Pawtucket until Melissa secured the Woonsocket residence. Then Leite moved in with her.
She said Leite had worked for the Amazing Superstore, a national chain that distributes pornographic videos, for several years and had recently been promoted to a district manager. He had no criminal record prior to his arrest for the murder, the Woonsocket police say.
When Boyer learned how Melissa met Perry last November, her mother was instantly leery. She told her daughter, “Be careful,” she recalled. And she was. Melissa and Leite had their first in-person encounter in a park near the Broadway apartment and talked for over an hour. Then they went for coffee a couple of times after that before they ever went out on a real date.
Her daughter seemed drawn to Leite, but Boyer said she was still worried until she got to know him a little better herself. He was gainfully employed and “he did not seem violent at all,” according to Boyer.
The relationship seemed to be going fine until about two weeks ago, when Melissa told one of her sisters that she was having second thoughts about it. She said Leite had begun going through her e-mails and phone records. He texted her obsessively, often while she was on break at work, to find out what she was doing. It was as if he were stalking her electronically.
“He got real strange the last couple of weeks,” said Boyer. “She thought she was going to straighten him out, but it didn't happen.”
As uncomfortable as Melissa may have grown with Leite, there was no evidence that he had ever raised a hand to her in the past — let alone a knife. Still, Boyer says Leite may have sensed that Melissa wanted to end the relationship, and that may have triggered the fatal confrontation in their apartment. While police discovered the body Saturday morning, they say Melissa could have died up to 48 hours earlier.
Boyer expects to make funeral arrangements for her daughter imminently because her body was released by the state medical examiner Tuesday following an autopsy. As expected, the medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, saying the cause was multiple stab wounds.
Though some have speculated Leite deliberately rammed his 1998 Nissan into the tree on Old Louisquisset Pike because he was suicidal or despondent over the killing, Boyer dismisses the notion. Though Boyer believes the crash was willful, she thinks Leite did it to fool people into thinking he was sorry for what he did.
“I believe it was a ploy,” she said.