Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog
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.
According to Gomes’s CORI record:
• He was convicted in 2006 of assault and battery for using a car as a dangerous weapon.
• He pleaded guilty in 2005 to assault and battery with a knife.
• In 2004, he was convicted for larceny and assault and battery.
• In 2001, he pleaded guilty to assaulting a prison guard with a tray.
• In 1996, he was convicted of breaking and entering and larceny, assault and battery with a chair, receiving stolen goods, and destruction of property.
• In 1993, he was convicted of drug possession and breaking and entering.
• In 1992, he was convicted of assault and battery, malicious destruction of property, and breaking and entering.
Gomes and Mendes shared a rocky relationship history with one another. Gomes was charged for allegedly beating her on two occasions and she filed restraining orders against him in 2006 and 2005. Mendes’s family members claim that the 48-year-old mother almost filed attempted murder charges against him after one domestic violence incident but she changed her mind.
Gomes’s Massachusetts criminal defense attorney promises to vigorously defend his clients against these latest charges and has requested the court’s help in retrieving electronic information that might be relevant to the case and Gomes’s defense.
Defense attorney for Gomes says electronic info could change case, SouthCoastToday.com, January 10, 2009
Double-slay suspect has 20-year rap sheet, Boston Herald, January 12, 2009
Related Web Resource:
Massachusetts Law About Criminal Records, Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries
