CUMBERLAND — The police knew just where to turn when they found Rita Paiva lying dead in her blood-soaked bed early Monday in her dreary cottage-style house in the town’s Valley Falls section. They traveled about a mile away and arrested her son, Richard Paiva, a troubled ex-convict with a long history of domestic violence and vicious assaults.

Richard Paiva, 36, wore clothes covered in blood from allegedly stabbing his mother multiple times with several knives that were found broken or bent near her body, a prosecutor told a District Court judge.

The police responded to Rita Paiva’s house, at 64 Baldwin St., four times in the five-day period before the murder for reports of domestic violence — Wednesday, Saturday and twice on Sunday. Michael Healey, spokesman for Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, said no arrests were made the first three times because neither Rita nor Richard Paiva chose to file a criminal complaint against each other and there was no sign of physical injuries.

That changed on Sunday afternoon. Rita Paiva, 57, told the police that she was cooking in the kitchen when her son punched her in the head, knocked her down and ripped the telephone from the wall. The police obtained a warrant for his arrest, but they were not able to find him.

When they did track him down, at 6 Belmont Terrace, it was too late. Paiva, the police said, had killed his mother.

Asked whether the police could have done more, Healey said, “I don’t know. The police were trying to find him. They were doing the right thing.”

A review of arrest reports and court files shows that Richard Paiva, his mother and other members of his immediate family are well-known to many police departments in the Blackstone Valley. They have found themselves locked up in police cell blocks in Cumberland, Central Falls and Pawtucket.

In the early 1990s, Paiva was arrested for assaulting his mother. Around that same time, Rita Paiva was charged with striking another woman in the head with a tree limb after Richard and two of her other sons were involved in a brawl on Central Street in Central Falls.

Deborah DeBare, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said tragedy such as murder strikes families that engage in decades of domestic violence.

“What we have learned over the years is that domestic violence is a pattern,” she said. “In domestic homicides, these are considered crimes of accumulation.”

The Paivas fought with each other and or with outsiders who crossed their path.

Neighbors on Baldwin Street said that Rita Paiva was volatile.

“She would start yelling and screaming if you looked at her the wrong way,” said Pauline Lovenbury, who lives in the neighborhood and had known her for years.

The history of violence dates back two decades when the Central Falls police arrested Richard Paiva, then 18, for carrying brass knuckles. Over the years, he was a regular inmate at the Adult Correctional Institutions for drug conviction and for violating the terms of probation.

In January 1996, Richard Paiva and his father, David Paiva, were arrested for attacking William Haney on Charles Street in Pawtucket. A Pawtucket police affidavit says that Richard Paiva knocked Haney unconscious and stomped on his head and body. Meanwhile, his father was arrested for slashing a witness, Adam Clavin, with a utility knife that left a foot-long slice across his back.

Haney suffered a broken leg and cheekbone, lost two teeth and needed 10 stitches to heal gashes on his face and lips.

The Paivas were charged with felony assault and several other crimes.

In a victim witness statement that was included in the case file, Haney said the beating forced him to miss six weeks of work. He also said that he feared for his life. “I was given a message from Richard through a friend that if I testify I will be killed and put in the Blackstone River,” he wrote.

Richard Paiva pleaded no contest to a count of felony assault and was ordered to serve 18 months in prison with 54 months suspended. The charges were dropped against his father because the two victims and a key witness moved out of state.

Two years later, in July 1998, Paiva was arrested again for striking Haney several times in the head — this time with a hammer. The ongoing dispute with Haney was over a woman. Paiva had previously assaulted the woman and she had obtained a restraining order against him.

At one point, the woman called the Pawtucket police to report that he had repeatedly driven past her home. “The victim appeared to be very nervous and trembling — telling the officers that she was in fear for her life for calling the police,” the report states.

bmalinow@projo.com