The jury deliberating the charges against a man accused of killing a police officer and an elderly woman in Weymouth, Massachusetts, five years ago had to restart its work on Wednesday after an alternate was brought in.
It's been a week since closing arguments wrapped in the murder trial of Emanuel Lopes, who is accused in the 2018 killings of Weymouth police Sgt. Michael Chesna and 77-year-old Vera Adams.
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Another member of the jury had been dismissed because of a conflict with vacation plans on Friday. When the jury returned to court Wednesday following the holiday to ask about being stuck without a unanimous decision, the judge noted that they were being considered a new jury and so technically had been deliberating for hours, despite already deliberating for several days.
The alternate had been present for the three weeks of proceedings in court — which took place in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, although the jury was selected from a pool of residents from Worcester County, requiring them to be bused in each day.
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The jury again asked to go home without a verdict Wednesday afternoon. The wait for a verdict took an apparent toll on the family.
The jury is tasked with deciding whether Lopes should be held responsible for the killings — his attorney had argued his history of mental illness caused him to act irrationally.
"It isn't surprising the jury is struggling with that a little bit, especially in view of– you get conflicting scientific and psychiatric evidence on that issue with respect to the defendant's abilities and cognitive knowledge of his actions ,so there is some room for jurors to have a sometimes-heated debate about whether they believe the defendant is guilty legally when the insanity defense is raised," NBC10 Boston legal analyst Michael Coyne said.
If he's convicted Lopes faces life in prison, but if he's found not guilty by reason of insanity, he could be sent to a mental health facility.
Lopes is accused of attacking 42-year-old Chesna with a rock while being arrested for driving erratically 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. Lopes is then accused of shooting Adams, who was nearby in her home's sunroom.
During the course of the trial, jurors were taken to the neighborhood in Weymouth where the fatal shootings occurred and instructed to examine the locations referenced throughout the trial. These include the 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 shootings happened.
Witnesses also described during the trial the moments their paths crossed with the driver of a white BMW on the morning of July 15, 2018.
Lopes' ex-girlfriend, Mary Cronin, also testified during the trial, talking about their tumultuous relationship, plagued with concerns about his alleged infidelity and instability. At times she said she would buy him clothes, food, a cell phone, drive him to interviews and work, and let him sleep in her car.
“I noticed he was a lot more upset and angry when he was dealing with the struggles of homelessness,” said Cronin in response to questions from Tipton about his alleged history of mental illness.
She confirmed earlier testimony that Lopes talked about conspiracies, such as people in the government were Martians and that history was written wrong and needed to be re-written. Starting around July of 2018, she said he was experiencing more and more symptoms and 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. That was the man who called Lopes hours before the shooting that claimed the lives of Chesna and Adams.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
