Greg Cormier

These are the positings from the old message board !!

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David Sorkin

Greg Cormier

Post by David Sorkin »

Don't know if any of you remember Greg...He was in bunk P2 with me back in 1983. Anyways, this article was in Today's Boston Globe:

Headline: Police arrest 4 in 1994 killing
Date: 7/25/2002

Byline: Eight years after a 20-year-old former star athlete from Milton High School was slain in an alleged gang shooting, police and prosecutors announced the arrests of four suspects and say they expect to apprehend four others soon.

Gregory Cormier was fatally shot June 10, 1994, while riding in a car with his cousin. Police have long believed the shooting was in retaliation for a double homicide the week before. Despite extensive interviews of Cormier's friends and family and convening a grand jury, authorities had not been able to solve the case.

Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Robert Nelson declined yesterday to say what broke the logjam. But he said there is now enough evidence to charge eight men.

Three Boston men, James Peebles, 28, Marcellus Durham, 29, and Albert Banks, 32, have been charged with conspiracy to commit an assault with intent to murder. Shawn Castle, 33, also of Boston, was charged with murder. But Nelson said four men, including the two men suspected of firing at Cormier, remain at large.

Peebles and Durham pleaded not guilty at their arraignment in Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham yesterday. Banks and Castle are both in prison, and will be arraigned in the next several days, Nelson said.

''Hopefully this will bring some closure to the victim's family and serve as a reminder that, even years later, you can't get away with these kinds of crimes,'' Nelson said.

Nelson told Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Butler that the shooting stemmed from a feud between Boston street gangs, the Belnel Dogs and the Greenfield Browns.

On June 5, 1994, Ato Murrell, a member of the Belnel Dogs, and his friend, Sylvia Flores, both 19, were shot and killed in the Mattapan Square area, he said.

Five days later, Nelson said, eight members of the Belnel Dogs decided to retaliate. They headed out in two cars, one carrying Peebles, Durham, Banks, and an unidentified man, and the second driven by Castle and carrying three unidentified men. While the first group searched for a car to steal, the second group drove around Milton, waiting for their friends, Nelson said.

Nelson said passengers in Castle's car spotted Cormier, who police believe was a member of the Greenfield Browns, walking from a friend's house in Milton around 10:30 p.m. Two of the unidentified passengers got out of Castle's car, crossed several backyards, and aimed their guns at Cormier as he got back into a car with his cousin, Wayne Jackson. As Cormier drove away, Nelson said, they opened fire on the car, killing Cormier and wounding Jackson.

Castle then drove back to the location of the first car, flashing his headlights to get the others to pull over.

''He told them not to go searching for anyone, because his group had already taken care of what had to be taken care of,'' Nelson said.

Shortly after the killings, investigators had conversations with Peebles, who told them a few details of where and how the killing had occurred. But shortly after that, Nelson said, Peebles became uncooperative, refusing to speak to detectives and invoking his Fifth Amendment rights in front of a grand jury.

But Peebles and Durham were arrested Tuesday night and are being held in lieu of $5,000 bail and $3,000 bail, respectively. The conspiracy charges are punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Nelson said Durham recently finished a federal prison sentence for drug and firearm charges.

Cormier graduated from Milton High School in 1992 and attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania for one year before dropping out for financial reasons. In the days following his slaying, police found packets of cocaine and a handgun inside the white Mazda 626 he was driving when he was killed.

This story ran on page B3 of the Boston Globe on 7/25/2002.



[url=http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/206/m ... ing+.shtml]http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/206/m ... ing+.shtml[/url]
david.sorkin@spcorp.com
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