Deadly Silence

Killers live among us. They may be standing next to you at the convenience store, in the car behind you at the red light, walking by in the mall. They are free, allowed to kill again, because people who can put them behind bars refuse to talk with authorities, hiding behind a suffocating “code of silence.” A yearlong investigation by The Enterprise found that when killers are free, even when they aren’t pulling a trigger, they’re still stealing lives.

PART 3
Rosando Marcelino, who was shot and left paralyzed in the shooting that killed Shaian Colon, grieves at his friend’s grave. (Craig Murray/The Enterprise)

Lethal lies

Few people who lie about a crime wind up going to jail for perjury

By Maureen Boyle, Enterprise staff writer
   Prosecutors say they’re cracking down on witnesses who lie, but court records show that once the cases get to court, few are convicted and even fewer go to jail.

VIDEO IN STORY

   Of the 27 people charged with perjury in Plymouth County in 2006 and 2007, only three were convicted.
   And in one of those cases, the punishment was a financial slap on the wrist.
   In March, Andrea Braham of Brockton, was convicted of perjury in Brockton Superior Court after a one-day jury-waived trial.
   She had told police she saw a man open fire near a downtown bar in Brockton and pulled her sister down to safety. But when she testified before the grand jury, the Bridgewater State College graduate insisted she didn’t see the man shoot.
   Her sentence? A $25 fine. READ THE REST OF THE STORY


Larissa Rodrigues, girlfriend of murder victim Shaian Colon, holds their baby, Shaian, as she talks about her childhood sweetheart in her mother's Brockton home. (Craig Murray/The Enterprise)

Silent streets: Part 3

The search for a killer; a family's search for justice

By Maureen Boyle, Enterprise staff writer
   Mourners filled the Russell & Pica Funeral Home on Belmont Street to pay respects to a 19-year-old girl who had died in a Boston hospital of a heart problem.
   From across the room, Maria Marcelino spotted a face. She nudged her husband. Is that him? she asked. Isn’t that the person they talked about?

VIDEO IN STORY

   There, across the room among the mourners was the young man whispered to be “the shooter,” the person who had shot Shaian Colon to death and left Marcelino’s son paralyzed.
   He was there to pay his respects, one of many from the tightly knit and often inter-related Cape Verdean community at the funeral home.
   Marcelino would later say she was surprised to see the teen at the wake, to see what he looked like.
   “I worry when I go to the store, ‘Is that him?’ I didn’t know what he looked like,” she said. Now, she feels she does. READ THE REST OF THE STORY