By Patrick Johnson | pjohnson@repub.com
BOSTON — The state’s highest court on Tuesday rejected a bid for a new trial by David Chalue, one of the three defendants convicted for a 2011 Berkshire County triple murder where three Pittsfield men were abducted, killed and dismembered, and then buried in the woods in Becket.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a review of the 2013 trial found no grounds to overturn Chalue’s three convictions for first-degree murder or to reduce his three sentences for life in prison without parole.
“We affirm the convictions and conclude that the defendant is not entitled to relief,” notes the decision that was penned by Justice David A. Lowy, and endorsed by Chief Justices Kimberly Budd, and justices Frank M. Gaziano, Elspeth B. Cypher, and Scott L. Kafker.
Chalue, a former Springfield resident, was convicted, along with Caius Veiovis and Adam Lee Hall of Peru, for first-degree murder in the killing of Pittsfield residents David Glasser, 44, Edward Frampton, 58, and Robert Chadwell, 47.
The bodies of Glasser, Frampton and Chadwell were found buried in a trench in Becket 10 days after they went missing in August 2011. They had been shot and stabbed multiple times, and then dismembered and buried in plastic bags.
Glasser had been scheduled to testify in two criminal cases against Hall, who had been identified as a sergeant at arms with the local chapter of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club.
The prosecution argued that Hall enlisted Veiovis and Chalue to help abduct and murder Glasser to prevent his testimony. Frampton, Glasser’s roommate, and Chadwell were also taken and killed because they witnessed the abduction of Glasser.
Hall, Veiovis and Chalue were each tried separately, and because of the publicity generated by details of the killings, the trials were each relocated from Pittsfield to Hampden Superior Court in Springfield.
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