Death penalty in play for horrific killing of Jassy Correia
By Laurel J. Sweet
Boston Herald
Louis D. Coleman III could face the death penalty if convicted of kidnapping, beating and strangling Jassy Correia before driving her corpse to Delaware four days later stuffed in a suitcase, U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling said Sunday.
Lelling said his Boston office will prosecute the multi-jurisdictional case as he announced a federal charge of interstate kidnapping resulting in death, which he said is death penalty eligible. He said no decision has been made on whether to seek a death sentence.
“When it comes to death-penalty determinations at the federal level, we talk to Washington. It’s a long process, so I couldn’t tell you at this point whether we will or will not,” Lelling said.
Coleman remained in custody at the Howard R. Young Correctional Institution in Delaware Sunday pending his expected initial appearance Monday in U.S. District Court in Wilmington. Lelling said it could take up to two weeks to transfer him back to Boston.
Coleman additionally faces state charges in Rhode Island bought by Providence police Friday of kidnapping, failure to report a death and mutilation of a dead body. Lelling said those charges will likely remain dormant while Rhode Island officials assist the feds with their superseding case.
If prosecutors don’t pursue the death penalty, Coleman faces a mandatory life sentence in federal prison if convicted.
A criminal complaint released Sunday was accompanied by an FBI affidavit that spells out the horrific timeline of the young mother’s fate, including that her body, bound with duct tape and coated with what Lelling said appeared to be baking soda, had been wrapped in a sofa cushion inside a black trash bag inside a suitcase.
Following a medical examination of Correia’s remains that Lelling stressed are very preliminary, he said, “There is no indication that she was sexually assaulted.” He also noted she had not been dismembered.
Coleman, the target of a sweeping manhunt last week, was arrested by Delaware State Police Thursday afternoon when they pulled over his California-registered red Buick sedan on Interstate 95 south near Wilmington.
“When asked if anyone else was in the car with him, Coleman said, ‘She’s in the trunk’ — or words to that effect,” Lelling said, adding, “I think there is probable cause to believe that he killed this girl.”
When asked by troopers about a bandage on his cheek during his booking, Lelling said Coleman is alleged to have responded, “It’s from the girl.”
Lelling said Correia, the mother of a 2-year-old daughter whose last hours of life were spent celebrating her 23rd birthday with friends at the Venu nightclub in Boston’s Theater District, died from blunt-force trauma and strangulation.
Investigators are still piecing together what happened.
Lelling said there’s no indication the two knew each other, but it appeared from the video footage reviewed so far that Correia stepped into Coleman’s car “under her own power. She’s mobile, she’s able to walk.”
But at some point between Boston and Providence, “It does appear she put up a struggle,” he said. “In the red sedan that was stopped there are cracks in the forward windshield on the passenger side. We don’t yet know whether those are connected to a struggle in the vehicle. She died of strangulation and there was significant bruising on her. There are definitely indications that she did not go quietly.”
Investigators said Coleman went shopping at a nearby Walmart on Tuesday and purchased three Tyvek suits, duct tape, two candles, electrical tape, a mask, surgical gloves, safety goggles, an odor respirator and bleach.
Among the items seized from Coleman’s Buick were a new pair of long-handled loppers traditionally used for cutting up tree branches, a plastic gas container, a butane lighter and disinfectant wipes, Lelling said.
On Wednesday, Lelling said surveillance cameras picked him up coming home with a new suitcase. “You can see the tags on it in the video,” he said.
Thursday morning at 1:15 a.m., “Coleman is seen wheeling that suitcase away from the apartment to the elevator and then out of the building to his car, where he hoists it into his trunk. It appears to bear some weight,” Lelling said. “At least based on camera footage, between Coleman arriving at his apartment complex at about 4 a.m. on Sunday and leaving at about 1 a.m. on Thursday, Ms. Correia does not leave the apartment.”
A search warrant executed at Coleman’s rented home in unit 602 at 95 Chestnut St. in Providence Thursday yielded hooded coveralls and respirator masks. In a dumpster outside, investigators recovered an empty box of baking soda, an empty package from a car air-freshener, a pair of bleach-stained men’s jeans with a belt and a bag containing plastic sheets, among other items.
Boston Police Commissioner William G. Gross, who stood with Lelling Sunday along with new FBI Boston Special Agent in Charge Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins, Providence Police Chief Hugh T. Clements Jr. and U.S. Marshal John Gibbons, called the multi-jurisdictional partnership involved in the investigation “a serious team hellbent on justice because no family should ever, ever have to go through this again.”
Bonavolonta called Correia’s murder “a heinous crime” and said, “We mourn the loss of a young life taken much too soon and our sympathies go to her friends, family and especially her young daughter, who is now faced with the sobering reality of having to grow up without her mother … Rest assured we will not stop until all leads are exhausted and justice is served.”
https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/03...-in-the-trunk/
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