Jurors spent Thursday deliberating the charges in the trial of Emanuel Lopes, accused of the 2018 murders of a Massachusetts police officer and an elderly woman in Weymouth, following the conclusion of closing arguments, and this Friday could be achieved. a verdict.
The jury retired to deliberate on Wednesday afternoon after several days facing all kinds of testimony and evidence, including a visit to the place where the events occurred.
Lopes, now 25, was just 20 when he was accused of murdering Weymouth police Sgt Michael Chesna and 77-year-old Vera Adams in 2018.
The trial has been ongoing at the Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, although the jury was selected from a pool of Worcester County residents.
Jurors heard testimony and evidence for three weeks but failed to reach a verdict on Thursday. They did ask for at least 3,000 pages of medical records before calling off deliberations after three hours.
Lopes is accused of attacking Chesna, 42, with a rock while he was arrested for erratic driving and vandalizing a home. Prosecutors said that during a struggle with the police sergeant, Lopes took Chesna’s gun and shot him eight times in the chest and head. Later, Lopes is accused of shooting Adams, who was nearby at his house.
Family members and defense attorneys for Lopes have argued that he has serious mental health problems and was psychotic when the ordeal occurred. They said the system didn’t give him the help he needed.
During the course of the trial, jurors were taken to the Weymouth neighborhood where the fatal shootings occurred and instructed to examine locations referenced throughout the trial. These include Queen Anne’s Gate Apartments in Weymouth, where Lopes is accused of taking his then-girlfriend’s white BMW, the intersection of Main Street and Columbian Street, where he allegedly crashed into another vehicle, and Burton Terrace, where the shooting occurred. .
WHAT THE WITNESSES SAID
The witnesses also described during the trial the moments when their paths crossed with the driver of a white BMW on the morning of July 15, 2018.
“As I was going by, there were stones flying,” Kevin Pearson recalled. “Run the red light on Route 139.”
Prosecutors allege it was Lopes, then 20, who was behind the wheel and crashed into another vehicle near South Shore Hospital and ran away.
William Kendall testified that he was drinking coffee and reading the newspaper that Sunday morning when he heard a loud crash in his kitchen. He found a large stone on the kitchen floor with window glass scattered everywhere.
“I dialed 911 and heard what I took to be gunshots. Then I immediately lay down and yelled at my wife, Judy, ‘Get down! Get down,’” Kendall said. “My fear was that she would look out the window to see what was going on.”
He said he counted four or five shots as he lay on the ground. Then she heard screaming outside.
“I remember the words were something like: ‘Give up, you’re surrounded.’ I didn’t hear any more shots so I went upstairs and gave my wife a big hug. It was an emotional moment.”
William McGuinness said he was making coffee before heading to work when he heard the sound of glass breaking outside at around 7:42 am. He looked out the window and saw a man holding a rock over his head. He identified that man as he testified Monday as Lopes.
A Weymouth police patrol stopped in their neighborhood and said the man threw the rock at Chesna, hitting him over the head and knocking him to the ground.
“He proceeded to walk to the rear of the officer, stand on his head and started shooting at him,” McGuinness said. “I think he went five times in the face, three times in the chest.”
McGuinness said he ran home and yelled for his wife to help him.
Amy McGuinness, a respiratory therapist, began chest compressions immediately but said the officer’s airway was obstructed.
“There was blood all over his face and the right side of his skull, or his head, was all exposed.”
She said more police officers responded. Some tried to help her try to administer an AED, while others chased after the shooter.
“The shots started behind us,” Amy McGuinness said. An officer told them to go inside. “I looked at my husband and said I would not stop.”
They said they continued chest compressions until EMTs arrived.
Lopes’ ex-girlfriend, Mary Cronin, also testified during the trial, discussing their tumultuous relationship, plagued by concerns about his alleged infidelity and instability. She sometimes said that she bought him clothes, food, a cell phone, took him to interviews and work, and let him sleep in her car.
“I noticed that he was much more upset and angry when dealing with homelessness struggles,” Cronin said in response to Tipton’s questions about his alleged history of mental illness.
She confirmed earlier testimony that Lopes spoke of conspiracies, such as that the people in the government were Martians and that history was badly written and needed to be rewritten. As of July 2018, she said that she was experiencing more and more symptoms and that they seemed to be getting worse. When they got back together in the summer of 2018, she said Lopes was upset when she told him that she slept with a former friend of hers. That was the man who called Lopes hours before the shooting that claimed the lives of Chesna and Adams.
