Articles Posted in Murder

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Today’s daily blog is actually a follow-up to yesterday’s blog, entitled, “Homicides, Assaults, Rape And Carnage In Shooting Spree One Hour South Of Boston “. Yesterday, I told you about the events which were reported in the streets of Brockton earlier in the week, made a few brief predictions and expressed sympathy for the accused’s attorney in any attempt to argue for his client’s release.

Of course, in this case, it did not take a legal expert of 25 years to predict that the gentelman was not likely to be going home any time soon.

Briefly, 22-year-old Kieth L (hereinafter, the Defendant”), is alleged to have gone on a rampage which included raping and shooting one woman, killing her sister, killing a local homeless man, leading the police on a chase, shooting at the police and then ending the chase by crashing into some cars.

He was arraigned at Brockton District Court yesterday, during which additional facts came to light. One of these items is the statement of the Defendant as to his motivations. It sort of reads like an odd type of “self-defense” argument which is unlikely to be successful in court.

According to the Commonwealth, the Defendant had told the police that he had hatched “an evil plan of mass murder and rape targeting victims he identified as non-white.” During the police interview, the Defendant allegedly said that he was fighting for a dying race” and that he was “fighting extinction,” according to a police report filed in court. He is also said to have admitted having stockpiled 200 rounds of ammunition to kill blacks, Hispanics and Jews.

The 18-page report by Brockton and state police described the Defendant as an obese, white man who lived with his mother and frequently surfed through racial propaganda on the Internet. ” [The Defendant] told us that people on these sites spoke the truth about the demise of the white race,” investigators wrote.

According to the chilling police report, the Defendant intended to end his bloody rampage at 6:30 p.m. at a synagogue near his Pleasant Street home, where Jewish people would be gathering for a bingo night. Then, he allegedly told police, he planned to shoot himself in the head.
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Kieth L, 22, (hereinafter, the “Defendant”), described by the Boston Herald as a “mama’s boy” is in big trouble today. He is scheduled to stand before a judge in Brockton Court. At this very moment, his attorney is wondering what he can say to get his client out on bail.

He may as well not even try. His client is not going anywhere.

The Defendant is charged with the most serious of charges, stemming out of an extremely violent scene in Brockton yesterday. He is alleged to have been raping a handcuffed Cape Verdean woman when the woman’s sister walked in. He is said to have shot the “intruder” to death and shooting the rape victim several times as she ran for help.

An elderly homeless man who may have witnessed the carnage in the middle of Clinton Street was also gunned down,, while two hero Brockton cops who captured the rampaging gunman cheated death by inches
A neighbor who lives across the street from the sisters said the surviving sibling still had handcuffs dangling from one wrist when he ran outside to assist them after hearing gunshots.
“I looked outside and saw one of the girls running, blood all over her,” he said. “I grabbed her and sat her down and told her to hang on while I ran to her sister, who I could see a distance away. But I could see her sister was already dead.”
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As a defense lawyer, one occasionally handles cases that seemingly will not end. Through my years in Boston and environs, I have had more than my share.

This case was probably regarded as one of those cases.

62- year-old Kathleen H. (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) is finally going to trial. She is charged with setting a fire that killed five people ten years ago. The trial started this week in Lawrence Superior Court.

Prosecutors say that she set a fire at a Lynn home where her son’s ex-girlfriend lived because she wouldn’t let him see his two kids. The ex-girlfriend and the Defendant’s grandchildren survived, but members of another family that lived in the same building died. The deaths included Heriberto Feliciano, 34, his wife, Sonia Hernandez, 32; their daughters, Sonia, 12, and Maria, 13; and their niece, Glorimar Santiago,11, who was sleeping over. All died from smoke inhalation.

The Defendant is charged with five counts of second-degree murder as well as a single count of arson.

She has been held in jail for a decade while her lawyer fought to keep the jury from hearing an alleged confession she made after the February. 24, 1999, blaze, as well as to determine her competency to stand trial.
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The Boston Herald is reporting that the New Bedford man charged with the murders of his mother and ex-girlfriend and in the kidnapping of a 12-year-old daughter has previous criminal convictions going back as far as 1992. Gary Gomes was arrested and charged last week after the two women’s bodies were discovered.

His mother Katherine Gomes’s body was found under an inflatable bed in her apartment. The body of Gary’s ex-girlfriend, Robyn Mendes, was found in another room. Both women had been fatally stabbed.

Prosecutors claim that Gomes dressed up Mendes’s body and put make up on her face after he murdered her. Gomes is also accused of going to Mendes’s house after the slayings and holding her 12-year-old daughter hostage while waiting for her husband to arrive so that he could kill him.

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Driving around Boston and environs during the winter months can be an adventure. We know that the storms are coming…they tell us the storms are coming…yet we seem to be taken by surprise when streets are slippery. Perhaps it is because we are often already angry when we are dealing with traffic issues. From my vast experience of 25 years in criminal justice I have found that even waiting patiently in a traffic jam is quicker than getting angry, acting out, getting arrested, needing a lawyer and still having to wait quietly in traffic when you get out of custody anyway.

Hey – but that’s just me.

Not everybody sees it the same way I do. For example, during the early morning hours yesterday, four people in Springfield demonstrated such an alternate viewpoint. Of course, they got arrested and I am at home writing my daily blog.

The arrests took place after a minor two-vehicle accident turned into a violent confrontation on Chestnut and State streets.

Complete with gunfire.

“When police arrived they observed a Ford Expedition leaving the scene of the shooting,” said Springfield Police Capt. Eugene C. Dexheimer. The operator of the Expedition (hereinafter, ” Defendant Auto A”) would not stop and was spotted by other officers on Route 5 near the Forest Park entrance approaching a Ford Mustang (hereinafter, “Defendant Auto B”), Dexheimer said.

Police determined the incident began as a car accident between the two vehicles, which then led to a physical confrontation.
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Yesterday, it was a former Boston police officer who found himself on the other side of the criminal justice aisle needing a criminal lawyer.

Ex-Boston Police Officer Isaac T., 43, of Arlington (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) ‘s legal problems began in the early morning hours of this past Saturday when he was allegedly observed to be drunk and carrying a BPD badge and a loaded 9 mm handgun when he was arrested at a Dorchester bar.

“Arrested? What would bring him to law enforcement attention?”

Well, he kind of said he would shoot a cop, according to prosecutors. In fact, he apparently said that he was carrying the firearm for the purpose of doing just that, according to MSNBC.

It was Saturday at about 1:30 a.m. at the Dublin House in Dorchester. After hearing the ex-guardian of society’s comments, an anonymous call was made to 911 from the pub to report the overheard threat. The Defendant was described as a man wearing a New York Yankees hat…which is sometimes considered a crime in itself in the area.

And so it was that the police confronted the Defendant outside the bar. Actually, he was hiding in a doorway next door to the nightclub when they confronted him.

They frisked him and found the 9 mm Beretta handgun. Apparently a loyal member of the “Hey, I’ll Bet I Can Make This Situation Worse” Club, the Defendant is said to have engaged in a “violent struggle” with two officers, the prosecutor later told the court in a bail hearing.

The Defendant, it would appear, did not win that struggle.
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As 2008 comes to a close, the Boston Police Department are still pursuing suspects, wherever they might be. Two such investigations have focused a spotlight on those sought in attempts to give them a warm place to stay for the holidays and a lawyer to talk to for company.

One of these investigations is actually the combination of what was once several different investigations. It involves several robberies which have recently occurred in the South End and Back Bay areas, including a Starbucks on Brookline Avenue about a block from Fenway Park.

The police has now released to the public the surveillance video of the suspect. Starbucks, for its part, is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the store’s Dec. 29 robbery. To view the video, or give information you may have about the star of said video, simply follow the first link below referencing the website.

The Starbucks robbery began like a scene out of Woody Allen’s “Take The Money And Run”. Police say that around 8:20 p.m. on Monday a man slipped a Starbucks employee a note that read, “Give me the money and no one gets shot.” Thinking the note was a written coffee order, the employee read the message aloud to a second employee, who then, perhaps dumfounded, handed the robber money from the register.

The robber then grabbed the note and cash and fled on foot up Brookline Avenue toward Kenmore Square.

Boston police believe the same robber may be responsible for several other business robberies in South End and Back Bay. Those incidents happened on Dec. 18, Dec. 21, Dec. 23 and Dec. 24 in the area of Newbury Street.

In those robberies, the suspect passed a threatening note indicating he had a gun.

Apparently, these notes were understood by the recipients with no problem.
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Slightly north of Boston, this week began with another romantic entanglement that spilled into the halls of justice. This time, it was substantially more tragic than our tale in yesterday’s daily blog. This time, somebody died. The prosecutor says that the killer is a criminal. Her defense lawyer, however, says she is the true victim, a victim of domestic violence.

Kimberly S, 30, of Somerville (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) was arraigned yesterday for murder. She is charged with plunging a kitchen knife into the chest of her boyfriend this past weekend. However, she claims that the killing of Amaldo A., 42, (hereinafter, the “Deceased”) was done in self-defense.

The Defendant, who claims to be a longtime victim of domestic abuse told police that she killed her boyfriend in the midst of another argument, according to a defense attorney and a police report filed today in court.

“Yes, I stabbed him, but he attacked me first,” the Defendant told police, according to the report.

In Somerville District Court, she pleaded not guilty to a murder charge and was held without bail. Defense attorney Maria Curtatone pointed to what she described as bruises on her client’s neck, chin, and forehead as evidence of chronic abuse.

Assistant Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan acknowledged that the couple had a history of domestic violence at their Greenville Street apartment. Neighbors said, however, that the Defendant was often the aggressor, Ryan said in court . The prosecutor also indicated that the smaller-in-stature Amado was too “embarrassed” to report the abuse.
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It may be that the Boston area is simply a dangerous place for a nanny. Several years ago, we had that case in Cambridge where a British nanny was accused (and, actually, convicted) of killing a baby. The case made international headlines. She did have an extremely experienced criminal lawyer on her side and…guess what? She ended up going home when it was all over.

Well, this case is a tad different and the attorney ends up not being needed for the nanny after all. In fact, there was no nanny. Not even a baby. And the outer-Massachusetts part of the drama did not take place overseas, but in Miami, Florida.

You remember Florida, don’t you? Another fraud, to the tune of billions of dollars, was recently discovered there.

Meagan M., 22 (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) is a Miami woman who is alleged to have come up with an inventive way to try to keep her man. She made up a baby.

Well, kinda. She tried to do it the regular way, but did not suceed. Apparently, she lost the baby due to a miscarriage three months into the pregnancy. However, Miami police said the Defendant pretended to carry the baby to full term in order to keep her boyfriend, John B., 26, (hereinafter, “Big John”) from breaking up with her. She even named the phantom child, giving it Big John’s last name.

The real problems began when Big John wanted to see the child after its alleged birth. So, the Defendant did what seemed to be the logical thing…she reported that the baby had been kidnapped, and then reported the baby missing to police.

Now, what could be more romantic than that?
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In Massachusetts, two Cape Cod teenagers and an adult were arrested for the murder of 16-year-old Jordan Mendes. Kevin Ribiero and Mykel Mendes, who are both 13, were charged with armed robbery and murder in juvenile court. Robert Vacher, 20, was charged with armed robbery and first-degree murder as an adult.

Jordan’s burnt body was found in a pit in the Hyannis woods. The suspects reportedly stole $10,000 from him. Jordan was a drug dealer.

Mykel and Kevin were arraigned on Friday and remanded to a juvenile detention center. Robert, who pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, is being held without bail.

Mykel and Jordan’s father is Manuel Mendes, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for trafficking cocaine at the Plymouth County House of Correction while he was serving a sentence for another drug conviction. Mykel’s Massachusetts criminal defense lawyer says his client was not involved in his half-brother’s murder and is grieving over his death.

Prosecutors claim that Robert ambushed Jordan in Mykel’s bedroom, stabbing him 27 times and shooting him. The two 13-year-old’s are accused of being there at the time of the assault and providing Robert with the murder weapons. They then allegedly took Jordan’s body and dumped it into a hole before returning the next day to set it on fire. They then allegedly used the money they stole from Jordan to buy a used BMW.

The two teenagers will have to be tried in juvenile court. If the 13-year-olds are convicted of the juvenile crimes, they would have to be placed in the custody of the Department of Youth Services until their 18th birthdays. After that, the DYS would have to get the court’s permission to keep the boys in custody until their 21st birthdays. Robert could face a life prison sentence without parole if he is convicted of 1st degree murder.

Two 13-year-olds, adult charged in Cape Cod Slaying, Boston Herald, December 20, 2008
13-year-old boy accused in killing of brother, Boston.com, December 20, 2008

Related Web Resources:

Massachusetts Department of Youth Services

Juvenile Crimes in Massachusetts (PDF)
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