Commonwealth v. Teixeira
| Docket Number | SJC-13007 |
| Decision Date | 20 October 2022 |
| Citation | 490 Mass. 733,196 N.E.3d 301 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Bampumim TEIXEIRA. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Theodore F. Riordan (Deborah Bates Riordan also present) for the defendant.
Benjamin Shorey, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.
Present: Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Cypher, & Wendlandt, JJ.
The defendant, Bampumim Teixeira, was convicted of two counts of murder in the first degree on theories of deliberate premeditation, extreme atrocity or cruelty, and felony-murder for the deaths of two anesthesiologists, Drs. Lina Bolanos and Richard Field. The victims, who were engaged to be married, were found in their Boston penthouse having been stabbed, Bolanos with twenty-four sharp force injuries to the neck, two of which severed her jugular veins, and Field with one stab wound to the neck that nearly severed his carotid artery. The defendant, who had previously worked as a concierge in their building, was discovered by police at the scene. He contended that he and Bolanos were having an affair, that the victims’ engagement was a sham with Bolanos remaining in the relationship solely for financial reasons, that Field killed Bolanos, and that the defendant killed Field in self-defense.
On appeal, the defendant argues that the prosecutor improperly appealed to the emotions of the jury during closing argument, that the defendant's requested changes to the model jury instruction on extreme atrocity or cruelty should have been allowed, that the trial judge should have instructed the jury that specific unanimity is required for the evidentiary factors relevant to extreme atrocity or cruelty, and that we should exercise our authority under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, to reduce the defendant's convictions or grant a new trial. We affirm the convictions and discern no reason to grant relief under G. L. c. 278, § 33E.
1. Background. a. Facts. The following facts are supported by the evidence presented at trial.
At the time of the killings, the victims were an engaged couple living in a penthouse unit on the eleventh floor of a condominium building in the South Boston section of Boston. They were both anesthesiologists; Bolanos practiced pediatric anesthesiology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital, and Field owned a pain management clinic.
In March 2016, about thirteen months before the killings, the defendant began working as a concierge in the building. During his three-month employment at the building, he was trained on several of its unique policies and structural features. For example, he learned that contractors working on the premises were required to leave the building by 4 P.M. , and that although a key fob was required to access the residential floors from the elevator, the elevator would ascend from the parking garage with someone in it if it was called by a person on a higher floor. In addition, he learned how to access the building's stairwells and which stairwell reached the eleventh floor, where the victims lived. His training also included the monitoring of surveillance cameras, and he knew that security tours of the building were conducted at 4:30 or 5 P.M.
On the day of the killings, the "runner"1 on duty for the building observed a man, presumably the defendant, wearing glasses, a bright green reflective vest, black jeans, and a hoodie, and carrying a backpack, attempt to open the building's locked front door at around 2:40 P.M. The runner walked to the front door to assist the man, but when he reached the door, he saw that the man had walked away and had turned toward the rear of the building. Later in the afternoon, when the runner moved his car into the building's parking garage, he saw the same man, standing outside by the left side of the garage door.2 Video footage from a security camera showed the man following a car into the garage on foot at 3:47 P.M. 3 Video footage from a surveillance camera in the lobby showed a carpenter who had been working in the victims’ residence on the day of the killings leaving the building at 4 P.M.
Bolanos returned home at 4:50 P.M. ; she picked up a few packages from the concierge desk. Between 5:19 P.M. and 6:10 P.M. , she received, but did not read, text messages from Field and others. Field called Bolanos at 6:31 P.M. , but she did not answer.
Field arrived home at 6:38 P.M. Between 7:05 P.M. and 7:09 P.M. , six calls to 911 were placed from his cell phone, one lasting four seconds and the others lasting zero seconds. His cell phone received two unanswered callbacks from 911 after the fifth and sixth outgoing calls. At 7:41 P.M. , an almost three-minute call to 911 was placed from Field's cell phone. Three people were recorded on the call: Field, Bolanos, and an unknown person. After another unanswered callback from 911 at 7:44 P.M. , a one-second call was placed to 911 from Field's cell phone at 7:45 P.M.
At 7:46 P.M. , a series of text messages was sent from Field's cell phone to a friend, reading: "Call 111," "Gun man," "In house," "Pls," "Nw," "Eriou," "Erious," and "Serious." The friend did not see the messages until around 8:15 P.M. The friend sent a text message to Field but did not receive a response. The friend's girlfriend then called the concierge desk of the victims’ building, prompting a concierge to call Field and Bolanos, who did not answer; the concierge then called the police.
Five officers arrived at the building around 8:45 P.M. and took the elevator to the eleventh floor. They saw through the frosted glass door of the victims’ residence that it was dark. They observed two packages on the floor of the hallway. A set of keys also lay on the floor a few feet away from the door; using the keys, one officer unlocked the door and entered the unit with his gun drawn, after knocking and announcing himself as a police officer several times.
The officer saw the defendant in silhouette at the end of a corridor and yelled to him to get on the ground. Instead, the defendant held his hands outstretched and together as though he were holding a firearm. The officers yelled at the defendant to drop the gun. When an officer moved to gain cover in the kitchen area, the defendant turned towards the officer, and the officer fired his firearm. The defendant attempted to escape from the unit, fleeing toward the elevator while pointing his outstretched arms at the officers. Taking cover, officers discharged their weapons at the defendant.
The defendant was shot twice but continued toward the elevator on his knees, shouting for police to shoot him. Officers knocked him to the floor and handcuffed him. As they did so, the defendant smiled and said, "There's dead bodies." He told the officers that there was a sniper and that they were "going to die." The defendant also said, "They killed my wife." He asked the police to "[j]ust kill me." The defendant was wearing dark clothing and gloves.
After subduing the defendant, the officers, by then joined by officers from a special weapons and tactics (SWAT) team, found the deceased victims inside the unit: Field on the floor near the main bedroom, and Bolanos on the floor of the second bedroom. Both victims were covered in household cleaning solutions and had their hands cuffed behind their backs.
Bolanos's pants were open, unzipped, and pulled down, and both sides of her underwear were cut. She had duct tape in her hair, and broken pieces of her necklace were in her hair and on her neck. Her engagement ring was on her left ring finger with the stone turned in facing her palm. Her jacket and blouse were discovered in the main bedroom closet, stuck together with duct tape. The blouse was missing buttons, which were found in the kitchen and hallway.
Bolanos had twenty-four sharp force injuries to the neck, two of which severed her jugular veins, three of which hit her vertebrae, and all of which contributed to her death. She also suffered hemorrhages in her scalp and bruises on various parts of her body, including her left eye, her forehead, her right breast, both wrists, both legs, and the fingers of her right hand.
Field had one stab wound to the neck and small abrasions to his right ear and around his mouth and nose. His carotid artery was cut nearly in half, and he had swallowed one hundred milliliters of blood. The medical examiner determined that he likely died within a few minutes of the stab wound, after suffocating on his own blood. He also had a bruise on his wrist and an abrasion on his right knee, and one pant leg was cut or torn off and had duct tape stuck to it.
Officers discovered a backpack near the front door that contained jewelry and the missing portion of Field's pant leg. In the hallway outside the unit, they found boots, a baseball hat, a knit hat, a blood-stained yellow shirt with reflective material on the front and back, a large knife, and a black drawstring backpack containing a rubber mask, clumps of hair, duct tape with hair stuck on it, a folding knife, wire cutters, a satin sleep mask, a fake beard, scissors, a black BB gun, and bank cards in both victims’ names
. Field's blood was on the large knife, and medical examiners concluded that the blood on the yellow shirt was likely from the victims. The rubber mask had blood on both sides; Field was identified as "the possible major contributor to that mixture." The sleep mask, wire cutters, and folding knife each had blood from one or both victims.
In the kitchen, officers found a second large knife on the counter next to a reddish-brown stain, hair, and a wallet containing Bolanos's driver's license and credit cards. Bolanos's blood was on the knife. Written on the wall of the apartment in marker was the statement, "He killed my wife." A large "X" was drawn through a photograph of Field that was hanging on the wall.
The defendant was transported to the hospital to receive treatment for his gunshot wounds. He refused to tell the emergency medical services responders his...
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