Thursday, 4:30 PM
White supremacists used severed hand to brag about slayings in Hingham, court documents allege
John R. Ellement and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
The two homeless men found dead in a Hingham park in 2005 were beaten to death with bats and mutilated by two white supremacists who later used a severed hand as a prop at a party to brag about the killing, according to documents filed today in Hingham District Court.
The decomposing bodies of William P. Chrapan, 44, and David P. Lyons, 46, were found May 9, 2005, in an abandoned military bunker outside Bare-Cove Park. Eric Jeremy Snow, 25, and James Scott Winquist, 23, battered the two homeless men in April 2005 and cut off Chrapan's right hand as a souvenir that they showed off at a party on Rhodes Circle in Hingham, two unidentified witnesses told State Police.
"Mr. Winquist told the witnesses that this hand was the hand that had been cut off from a homeless man who they had killed at Bare Cove Park," Sergeant Leonard Coppenarth wrote in the police report filed today in court. "These witnesses told me that they had seen and heard Eric Snow and James Winquist mock the two murder victims by making gurgling sounds to imitate the death of the two homeless men."
Winquist and Snow were arrested Aug. 31 and charged with murder. They pleaded not guilty today in Hingham District Court, and Judge Patrick Hurley ordered them held without bail.
After the hearing, Lisa Winquist defended her son, saying he had been wrongly accused and was not a white supremacist or racist. "He has nothing against anybody," Lisa Winquist said.
Another person was responsible for the crime, she said, because her son has a heart and couldn't inflict that kind of cruelty. Police have harassed him for 2.5 years, she said.
Snow's relatives left court without speaking to reporters. During the proceeding, Snow repeatedly shook his head in the negative as if denying the allegations against him.
Outside court, Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz praised the dogged work of investigators, including Hingham Detective David Galvin, who stuck with the case.
Acting Chief Taylor Mills of the Hingham Police Department added: "These people need to be brought to justice ... for this type of violence -- senseless, evil, violence.''
Both defendants have lengthy criminal histories, court records show. Snow is known as Killa, a nickname he had tattooed on his neck. Winquist has his nickname, Twister, tattooed on his back along with the words "I hate you" on his forearm. Both men are members of Brothers of Blood or Brotherhood of Blood, a white supremacy group, a witness told police. Snow named his 7-month-old daughter Aryana -- aryan with an extra a.
It was not immediately clear what motivated the attack on the homeless men in 2005 or why it took two years to charge the suspects. The ethnicity of the two victims was not immediately available.
The case began on April 15, 2005, when Snow was released from the Plymouth House of Correction for an unrelated crime. A few days after his release, Snow and Winquist burned the tent where Chrapan and Lyons had been living. The two homeless men called Snow and Winquist an obscenity, and they beat the men with bats, according to the police report. Autopsies conducted the next day determined that both men died of head trauma, including skull fractures.
A person identified in the police report as witness 1 told investigators that he or she saw Snow and Winquist putting bats and their clothes in black garbage bags. They said "they beat up some bums up the street," witness 1 said.
Witness 1 drove the two defendants to Snow's mother's house in Bridgewater, where they shined headlights on the yard and buried the hand near a utility pole, according to the police report.
Later in the summer, Snow and Winquist dug up the hand, showed it off at the party in Hingham, and reburied it, according to the police report.
In July 2005, witness 1 directed police to Snow's mother's house in Bridgewater, and investigators found Chrapan's hand buried near a utility pole not far from her yard, according to the report.
Both Snow and Winquist have been in and out of jail since the killings. Winquist is currently facing charges that include statutory rape, threatening someone with an ax, and trying to ram a bicyclist in April while driving drunk in Wompatuck State Park.
While incarcerated, Snow and Winquist discussed the killings on telephone calls that were recorded, police said. They are scheduled to return to court Oct. 5.
