Homicide Watch Boston

The man who was killed in a shooting early Monday in Roxbury has been identified.

Allex Bryant

The shooting happened around 3:05 a.m. Monday morning outside 66 Humboldt Ave. Police found Allex Bryant, 28, of Boston, dead in the passenger seat of a car parked nearby, according to reports. One other person was injured in the shooting.

Neighbors in an apartment building in the area reported hearing an argument inside one of the apartments around 2:30 a.m. before the commotion spilled out onto the street.

No arrests have been made. Police are continuing to investigate, and ask anyone with information about the incident to call the Boston Police Homicide Unit at 617-343-4470. Anonymous tips can be left by calling the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS or texting the word ‘TIP’ to CRIME (27463).

Two separate shootings in Boston Tuesday night led to several injuries and one fatality.

Around 10:30 p.m., Boston Police responded to a radio call of a person shot around 7 Wordsworth St. in East Boston. At the scene, officers found a man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. EMS transported the victim to Mass. General Hospital, according to CBS Boston. The victim was later pronounced dead.

Police have not released the man’s identity, but said he was in his 20s. The motive for the shooting may have been drug-related, according to the Boston Globe.

About an hour later, a shooting in Jamaica Plain on School Street wounded two people, a man and a woman. The woman remains in the hospital in critical condition, according to the Globe.

Police are actively investigating the East Boston homicide and ask anyone with information to call Boston homicide detectives at 617-343-4470. To leave an anonymous tip, call the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS, or text the word ‘TIP’ to CRIME (27463).

By Matt Ingersoll

Opening statements began Tuesday in the first-degree murder trial of a Lynn man accused of stalking and fatally strangling his ex-girlfriend before dumping her body in an East Boston parking garage in 2013.

Prosecutors say Chhoeut Chin, 43, killed Sherry Leigh Bradley, 32, also of Lynn, sometime between the late evening hours of July 31 and the early morning hours of Aug. 1, 2013. Bradley’s body was found by a maintenance worker at about 9:20 a.m. Aug. 1, having suffered a fractured neck, a contusion to her skull, and bruises to her throat. Investigators believe Bradley’s body had been dumped just mere minutes earlier. 

Murder indictments against Chin were not handed down until September 2014.

In a full courtroom, Assistant District Attorney Edmond Zabin explained to the jury that Chin and Bradley had begun a romantic relationship sometime in the late spring or early summer of 2013 after meeting through mutual heroin dealers. The two of them lived together on and off for a short period of time, but Zabin said it soon became apparent that there was a pattern in which Chin would repeatedly harass and threaten Bradley whenever she tried to leave him or end their relationship.

Zabin described to the jury the events of July 31, 2013, the last day Bradley was seen alive. That night, she had plans to hang out and get high with her friend Christopher Schmidt at his Lynn home. At some point, Zabin said she told Schmidt she was going to go out to get something to eat, but once she did, she never returned.

Early the next morning, Zabin said video surveillance footage from a parking garage at 800 Border St. in East Boston picked up a blue Honda Civic driving in just minutes before Bradley’s body was discovered. The video showed the car backing into the spot next to where she was found. Because Bradley was found without any form of identification, police detectives who were called in were not able to identify her until the next day, which they did through her fingerprints.

Zabin said upon the police’s review of the surveillance footage, it became obvious to them that the blue Honda Civic was somehow involved – a car that officers later found was registered to Chin.

Car registration records as well as police interviews with members of Bradley’s family all connected the investigation to Chin, Zabin said. But when he was brought in for police interrogation and given a photo of Bradley, Chin allegedly told investigators he had “never seen this person before” in his life.

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One person is dead after a shooting early Monday morning in Roxbury on Humboldt Avenue near Munroe Street.

The incident, which one witness told the Boston Herald sounded like a “shootout,” happened around 3:05 a.m.

According to Boston police, when officers arrived on the scene at 66 Humboldt Ave., they found one man who appeared to be in his 20s who had been shot dead. Another victim was nearby suffering from a non-life threatening gunshot wound. That man suffered an injury to his ankle, according to WBUR.

The Boston Globe reports the shooting happened after a resident of a nearby apartment complex returned home around 2:30 a.m. with a group of people, and neighbors reported hearing arguing, which then moved outside.

Police recovered three different firearms at the scene, WBUR reports. One man who lives nearby told the Herald he heard more than 20 gunshots coming from two different weapons.

When the bullets stopped, he got up to his living room and looked out a window and saw a car speed away, headed the wrong way on Munroe Street before turning on Humboldt Avenue, he said. A short time later, he saw cops focusing on a man in the passenger side of a sedan. The man had been fatally shot.

He said the gunplay lasted between 90 seconds and 2 minutes.

Both the Globe and WBUR report the victim was a 28-year-old man but police had not released the victim’s identity.

Another neighbor told the Globe she and her cousin looked out of their window and saw a man in a hooded sweatshirt running away.

No arrests had been made as of Tuesday afternoon, though officers continue to investigate the shooting. Anyone with information regarding the shooting is asked to call Boston Police homicide detectives at 617-343-4470. Anonymous tipsters can call the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS or text the word ‘TIP’ to CRIME (27463).

By Miharu Sugie

The third man involved in the 2012 murder of Nicholas Martinez in the South End was sentenced Wednesday in Suffolk Superior Court. Raymond Concepcion of Hyde Park faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after a minimum of 20 years for first-degree murder, concurrent with a four to five-year term for his unlawful possession of a firearm.

Concepcion shot Martinez while he was in his car stopped at a red light in the South End. Concepcion then fled in a waiting car. As reported earlier, the other two people involved in the murder, Shakeem Johnson and Jaquan Hill, pleaded guilty last month and were sentenced to five years for their unlawful possession of a firearm and 12 to 14 years for manslaughter. 

Nicholas Martinez

Assistant district attorney Jennifer Hickman suggested Concepcion be sentenced to 25 years with the possibility of parole, which is the maximum legally allowed for juveniles convicted of murder. Concepcion’s attorney, John Cunha, suggested 15 years in prison was an appropriate punishment. Judge Jeffrey Locke said in court he must consider the fact that Concepcion, now 18, was a juvenile in 2012.

The jury deliberated for less than a day, a speedy end to the two-week-long trial. As the jury announced their verdict, Concepcion kept his head down.

Pausing in front of Concepcion and Cunha, ADA Hickman read out loud a letter penned by Martinez’s girlfriend to those in the courtroom.

“I was no longer going to marry the man I loved, my best friend, and his family had lost him for good,” Hickman read.“There’s no day that goes by where I don’t think about him. My baby girl will have to grow up without him.”

Martinez’s mother delivered her impact statement amidst her tears.

“My Nico was all about the the family no matter what,” she said. “When I hear the ambulance, when I hear the cruisers… I think of Nico. Nico wasn’t supposed to be killed, Nico wasn’t supposed to die… This pain is never going to go away.”

After deliberating for more than three days, jurors in the murder trial of Edgardo Clark declared themselves deadlocked, and the judge declared a mistrial.

Clark, 31, of Quincy, is charged with first-degree murder in the 2014 stabbing death of 31-year-old Gerald Williamson of Boston.

Shortly before 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 16, 2014, the two men allegedly got into an argument inside a Chinese food restaurant on Bowdoin Street near Olney Street in Dorchester. According to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, Williamson attempted to walk away from the verbal confrontation, but Clark reportedly followed him out of the restaurant and began a physical altercation, and pulled out a knife. Williamson started to retreat, prosecutors say, but Clark stabbed him in the neck.

Williamson died from his injuries. at Boston Medical Center.

Jury deliberations in the case began Tuesday, and on Friday jurors announced they were hopelessly deadlocked. Prosecutors say they expect to re-try the case.

By Owen Pence

Raymond Concepcion, the teen accused of killing Nicholas Martinez in 2012, was coerced into the shooting by fellow gang members, Concepcion’s defense attorney argued during opening statements at Concepcion’s trial Wednesday morning in Suffolk County Superior Court.

Concepcion is accused of fatally shooting Martinez, 22-year-old Boston resident on Southampton Street in the South End one October evening while he was stopped in his car at a red light. Concepcion allegedly fired multiple shots into the vehicle, fatally wounding Martinez, who reportedly accelerated onto the gas pedal before crashing the car and falling unconscious. 

Nicholas Martinez

Defense attorney John Cunha Jr. argued that Concepcion, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, had been coerced into executing Martinez. Concepcion, Cunha Jr. argued, lacked the cognitive skills and size to stand up for himself against an alleged Mission Hill gang member and his brother. Shakeem Johnson, 21, and Jaquan Hill, 19, who drove Concepcion’s getaway vehicle on the night of the murder, both had greater physical builds than Concepcion, Cunha Jr. argued.

In February, Hill and Johnson pleaded guilty to their roles in Martinez’s murder and were sentenced to 12 to 14 years for manslaughter and five years for possession of a firearm without a license.

Cunha Jr. also alluded to an ultimatum Concepcion faced regarding Mission Hill gang members, in which his only way out of the gang was to acquire a gun and shoot someone. The defense argued that Concepcion possessed the brain function of a nine or 10-year-old. He had only lived in the United States for 2 1/2 years at the time of the murder and was in a depressive state, Cunha Jr. said, claiming Concepcion could not fend for himself against Johnson and Hill.

During the state’s opening arguments, the assistant district attorney outlined the prosecution’s plan to cite GPS records that they say prove Concepcion, in the car with Johnson and Hill, deliberately tracked Martinez on the night of Oct. 17, 2012, before killing him and fleeing the scene. The three men were arrested on a nearby highway and taken into custody approximately six minutes after the shots were fired, concluding a brief car chase amidst heavy rush hour traffic.

Two of the officers first on the scene, Christopher Bowers and Timothy Burns, testified Wednesday and described the night’s proceedings.

Hill and Johnson disrupted the opening statements of their joint trial to plead guilty. Judge Jeffrey Locke estimated testimony in Concepcion’s trial may last up to two weeks.

The man arrested in connection with a fatal shooting in Mission Hill last December has been held without bail.

Tsunami Ortiz, 17, was arraigned Monday, shortly after police arrested him. He is charged with murder for the shooting death of 17-year-old D’Andre King-Settles on Dec. 18 near 60 Annunciation Rd. in Mission Hill. Witnesses at the time described hearing shots, then seeing multiple people standing near King-Settles’ body before running away, and hearing more shots.

D’Andre King-Settles

Ortiz was also charged with two counts of armed assault with intent to murder after allegedly firing at two of King-Settles friends, who survived, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon because one of the friends was grazed by a bullet. He is also charged with firearms-related offenses.

According to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office:

Footage from a surveillance camera inside the building shows Ortiz and another man enter the building, leave, and return a short time before the victims arrive. The footage shows the victims leave the building, followed by Ortiz and the second man a short time later.

Ham said the footage was of sufficient quality to identify Ortiz, and that cell tower data linked to his cell phone is consistent with his presence in the area of the shooting at the time it occurred.

Police arrested Ortiz over the weekend in Randolph, according to the Boston Globe. A second man who is named in the police report has not been arrested, according to the Globe.

Assistant District Attorney Catherine Ham also said the same video footage shows Ortiz holding a cellphone just before shots were fired, possibly in an attempt to record the murder as it happened, according to the Globe.

Dozens of King-Settles’ relatives and friends were at the arraignment. His grandmother said he had been walking his younger two siblings home from the bus stop just minutes before he was shot.

No motive for the killing has been revealed. Anyone with more information about this case is asked to call the Boston Police Homicide Unit at 617-343-4470.  Anonymous tips can be made by calling the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1 (800) 494-TIPS or by texting the word ‘TIP’ to CRIME (27463).

Ortiz will return to court March 28.

The 16-year-old who is charged with fatally stabbing a 15-year-old on Sunday afternoon in Dorchester was held without bail at his arraignment in Dorchester Municipal Court on Monday.

Amari Pope, of Dorchester, allegedly stabbed Deon Hopkins, also of Dorchester, just after 4:30 p.m. Sunday, near the intersection of Columbia Road and Devon Street.

Hopkins and Pope’s girlfriend were reportedly arguing outside, according to the Boston Globe. Pope allegedly saw the pair arguing, ran into his home nearby and grabbed a knife, then returned outside.

Deon Hopkins

Pope stabbed Hopkins in the heart, according to the Boston Herald. Prosecutors say Hopkins ran across the street and collapsed near El Coli Market. The convenience store’s surveillance footage reportedly shows Pope following Hopkins across the street and circling his body, still holding the knife.

Pope then reportedly fled the scene and changed his clothes.

According to prosecutors, Pope told a family member that he did “something stupid,” and made other statements alluding to his involvement in the stabbing. Pope reportedly also made similar statements to police. Pope and an adult family member were taken to the Boston Police Homicide Unit.

Pope, who has charges of armed assault and armed robbery on his record, according to the Herald, will next appear in court on March 30.

Police arrested a suspect Monday morning in connection with a fatal stabbing in Dorchester Sunday afternoon.

Shortly before 4:40 p.m., officers responded to Columbia Road and Devon Street for a report of a person shot. When they arrived, officers found the victim, a 15-year-old boy, suffering from what appeared to be a gunshot wound, but was later determined to be a stab wound.

The teen, who has not been formally identified, was taken to Boston Medical Center where he later died from his injuries.

Just after 8:15 a.m. Monday, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office announced an arrest had been made in connection to the stabbing, and that the suspect, a 16-year-old, was set to be arraigned later in the day at Dorchester Municipal Court. The DA’s office was waiting to release the suspect’s name.