Tension rises in Mattapan quadruple slaying trial; spectator calls key witness a ‘rat’

By Maria Cramer and Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

The testimony of a key prosecution witness today in a 2010 quadruple slaying in Mattapan was interrupted when a spectator in the courtroom hissed that he was a “rat” and a “snitch.”

Dwayne Moore allegedly shot four people to death. (Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff)

The man struggled as court officers removed him from the tense, crowded room and then yelled with an expletive that Kimani Washington, 36, was a “rat bastard.”

Washington, a career criminal, is under cross-examination today in Suffolk Superior Court. He is testifying in the trial of two other men charged with the slayings, his cousin, Edward Washington, 32, and Dwayne Moore, 34.

Washington, who has a string of assaults and drug arrests on his record, testified Tuesday that although he and Moore planned to rob a drug dealer of cash and cocaine, he left before the four people, who included a mother and her 2-year-old son, were killed.

Defense attorneys have argued that Washington, who has reached a plea deal with prosecutors under which he will serve 16 to 18 years in prison, is lying to save himself. They are trying to raise doubts about his credibility during the cross-examination, which stretched for hours today.

Washington acknowledged today that his lifestyle called on him to lie to police and to prosecutors.

The defense sought to show him in the act, playing a tape in which Washington lied to police investigators, telling them that a car that he had taken from the crime scene belonged to a friend when it actually belonged to one of the victims.

Washington had testified Tuesday that he didn’t know where he was during the crime and that Moore had picked the target. But the defense elicited testimony from him today that he had bought drugs in the area before and had been in the Mattapan Square area “too many times to count.”

Washington also admitted that he had shot people before the night of the slayings, but he said, “I’m willing to accept responsibility for my actions, but I’m not willing to accept responsibility for the actions of others.”

Moore’s defense attorney, John Amabile, probing Washington’s background, questioned him about his five children by different mothers, and the six women he once listed on a jail visiting list as his fiancees.

“Are you a pimp, sir?” Amabile asked.

Washington responded: “I assisted women in selling themselves.”

Washington, who testified that one of his street nicknames was “Billy Dead Furious,” said he had a bad temper and became “extremely” volatile when drunk. Washington had testified Tuesday that he downed liquor and smoked pot in the hours before the crime.

Eyanna Flonory, 21; her son, Amanihotep Smith, 2; Simba Martin, 21; and Levaughn Washum-Garrison, 22, were killed on Sept. 28, 2010. The cold-blooded killings on Woolson Street shocked the city.

One man survived. Marcus Hurd suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the head and is now a quadriplegic. He is also expected to be a crucial witness in the case.