Just before his first-degree murder trial was set to begin, a Jamaica Plain man pleaded guilty last week to voluntary manslaughter in the June, 2014 death of a teenager.
Johnnie Bonnie, 23, of Jamaica Plain, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Bonnie shot 17-year-old Dorchester resident Evans Archer execution-style on
Evens Archer
June 29, 2014. The two were at the same party on Castle Court in the South End. Archer died approximately three weeks after the shooting.
According to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office:
Bonnie fired a .22 caliber semiautomatic handgun, hitting Archer once in the head, at about 1:50 am before running away down East Berkeley Street and onto Shawmut Avenue.
Video evidence from a nearby camera did not capture the shooting or reveal the gunman’s identity, but it did show the assailant fleeing the scene and crouching near a sewer grate. When investigators searched the drain below, they recovered a firearm that was a ballistic match to the projectile that killed Archer.
The investigation continued for several months, culminating in Bonnie’s Nov. 14, 2014, indictment by the Suffolk County Grand Jury. By that time, Boston Police had arrested him on a new gun charge for which he was sentenced to a term of five to seven years.
Archer attended East Boston High School and was a “gifted basketball player,” according to the Boston Globe.
He was popular, funny, with a talent for science and social studies. Maybe, he told his family, he would go to Morehouse College, in Atlanta.
Archer’s brother told the Globe that Evens was popular and loved working summer jobs to make his mown money and support himself.
“He liked to relax and have fun and enjoy himself,” Devens Archer told the Globe. “He also loved life, he loved to live it to the fullest.”
Archer told the Globe his brother did not know Bonnie, and that their first encounter was at the party.
