Dorchester man fatally wounded in Quincy store theft, police say

QUINCY -- William J. Quarterone did not go back to sleep yesterday morning, too troubled after watching a bleeding man collapse in front of his home in the early hours. Minutes before, police said, the man had stolen some Play Station 2 video games, and was fatally wounded as he fled.

"It's something you see watching TV, but it happened right in front of my house," Quarterone said. Police said Troy D. Nunes, 37, of Dorchester, injured himself in a smash-and-grab robbery at a Hollywood Video store on Newport Avenue in Quincy. They said he threw a rock through the window of the video store, stole six Play Station 2 video games, and, as he climbed out the window, apparently got a piece of glass stuck in his leg, causing heavy bleeding.Detective William Lanergan said Nunes was transported to Quincy Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 4:05 a.m. Police said that doctors told them Nunes bled to death. Lanergan said the video games were found next to Nunes's body. "They are just soaked in blood," Lanergan said.

Quarterone said he was watching the news in his Holbrook Road home early yesterday morning when he thought he heard a gun being fired. From his window, he saw a man run from the store, cross the parking lot, and collapse in front of his home. He called police and ran outside. When he saw the condition of the man, he called police again. "It shook me up pretty good," Quarterone said.

As he waited for police, Quarterone warily approached Nunes, who he thought had fallen and hit his head. Nunes did not respond when Quarterone told him help was on its way. "He was still alive, but he wasn't talking," Quarterone said.Police said that after the robbery, Nunes apparently ran from the store, across the parking lot onto Holbrook Road, where he collapsed in the middle of the street in front of Quarterone's home. "I just saw a human being who was probably down on his luck," said Quarterone, a substance abuse counselor at a South Boston recovery facility. "You surely have to be desperate to do something like that. . . . You just hate to see someone bleed to death out on the street."

Lanergan said Nunes was "known to police," but declined further comment.

According to Suffolk County records, Nunes, a father of eight, was paroled from the Suffolk County House of Correction in July 2002 after serving about 16 months for an assault and battery conviction.

In 1992, Nunes was sentenced in Suffolk Superior Court to serve three to five years in state prison after pleading guilty to armed assault in a Dorchester house, armed robbery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in connection with an incident the year before. Nunes was accused of breaking into a house on Blakeville Street and stealing a $400 television set and a $300 VCR while armed with a knife. The prison sentence was suspended, and Nunes was placed on probation. However, after Nunes violated the terms of his probation, the sentence was reinstated, and he was sent to MCI-Cedar Junction, according to court records.

Nunes also was on a list of potential witnesses for the state in two trials stemming from the 1990 slaying of a 25-year-old Irish immigrant, Michael Carr, who was ambushed, beaten, and fatally stabbed on a Dorchester Street corner in an attempted armed robbery. One defendant was convicted of the murder, and the other pleaded guilty to being an accessory.

Outside the Dorchester home where police said Nunes lived, a man who identified himself as Nunes's father, but declined to give his name, said Nunes "was a good worker who just took the wrong path.

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said. "He was too young to die."

The man said his son was expecting another child, and the mother was on her way to Dorchester from Georgia, where he thought the couple had plans to relocate.

Nunes's father said his son had worked for him for at least 17 years in the construction business. "I taught him everything he knows," he said. "He was very good in demolition. Very good . . . If you showed him something once, he could do it."

Nunes's father said he knew that his son had problems in the past, but had no idea what might have prompted him to go to the video store.