Act of friendship ends in killing

Blind Brighton man charged; teacher tried to cheer him

Luis Marquez was arraigned in Brighton yesterday.

It was a kind gesture that led to a deadly encounter.

On Tuesday, Terri Werner, a 56-year-old art teacher, visited the home of her former student, Luis Marquez, a 26-year-old blind machinist who had been struggling with depression and bipolar disorder.

That afternoon, authorities said, Marquez turned on his old teacher, stabbing her and beating her repeatedly in his basement apartment on a leafy street in Brighton. Werner, who had taught Marquez at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, was declared dead at the scene.

It was a brutal, shocking end to a yearslong friendship that began after Werner started teaching at the school in 1994.

"He loved Terri dearly," said Werner's mother, Marilyn, 83, during a telephone interview from her home in Washington state. "Something must have snapped. He wouldn't hurt anything."

Police declined to elaborate yesterday on the relationship between Werner and Marquez, but said she had gone to the house that day to comfort Marquez.

"She had gone over there to help him out," said Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department. "She just, out of kindness, was checking in on him, and tragedy struck."

The killing shocked the quiet Oak Square neighborhood where Marquez lived in a three-level house of another Perkins teacher. It also recalled the February killing of 53-year-old social worker, Diruhi Mattian, who police say was stabbed to death by a client, 19-year-old Thomas Belanger, in his North Andover apartment. Belanger was found incompetent to stand trial in May.

At the Watertown school, where Marquez had studied as a child and worked as an adult making braille machines, teachers and students were devastated.

"The Perkins community is in deep shock," president Steven Rothstein said in a brief interview at the small, quiet campus, where a few students mingled on the last day of classes for seniors, who are to graduate tomorrow.

Marquez, a 2002 graduate of Perkins, was suspended without pay after officials heard of his arrest, a school spokeswoman said.

Marquez, a slight man who relies on a cane and a seeing eye dog, was arraigned in Brighton District Court yesterday afternoon, as his twin brother, Jose, his mother, and friends looked on.

Marquez kept his head down as Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Hickman described the slaying, during which Werner was injured on her chest and head.

Hickman said a neighbor called 911 and told police to come immediately to Nonantum Road, where they found Marquez, shirtless and pacing.

When officers asked him what happened, police said, he told them, "I killed somebody."

He later led the officers to his apartment.

Hickman did not describe a motive.

Marquez was ordered held without bail. As he was led away by court security guards, Marquez's brother body shook with sobs.

"Love you, buddy," Jose Marquez called out to his brother, who did not answer. "Love you, man."

In an interview before the arraignment, Jose Marquez said his brother had been diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder in the last two months, and he was concerned Luis might have stopped taking his medication.

Jose Marquez also said his brother had never been violent and was an independent man who loved to play beepball, a form of baseball that uses oversized, beeping balls and vibrating bases so blind people can play competitively.

Marquez's lawyer, Randall K. Power of Newton, said he spoke with the suspect before the arraignment and that his client's mental state will probably play a role in the case.

"As any person facing these charges would be, he's very scared," Power said after the hearing.

At Perkins, Werner taught art to teenagers in the secondary education program, directed plays, and coached sports, said Marilyn Rea Beyer, a Perkins spokeswoman.

"Her colleagues and students will all miss her warmth, her energy, her creative spirit," Beyer said. "She had an incredible focus on her students."

A 2002 Christian Science Monitor article about the school described Werner guiding Marquez as he sculpted a rabbit out of clay.

Over the years, the two formed an unusually strong bond, and Werner came to see her student as someone looking for a stronger sense of family, Marilyn Werner said.

Marquez would come out to Washington with Werner on family visits and grew close to his teacher's mother.

A few times, he even came on his own, said Marilyn Werner, who recalled his last visit over Christmas a couple of years ago.

During the visit, Werner said she banged her back and cracked some ribs.

Marquez took care of her the entire time, she said.

"He did all the cooking, he did all the cleaning, he did all the dishes," Marilyn Werner said. "Love him dearly."

Marilyn Werner said she and her son plan to fly to Boston today and hope to talk to Marquez.

She described her daughter as a creative woman who loved teaching.

"She liked everybody," Werner said. "She would do anything for anybody if they needed it. She helped numerous, numerous young people."

Last year, Werner helped organize "A Feeling for Form," an art program at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston that allowed her students at Perkins to touch certain pieces and learn about others through the descriptions of guides.

The school's website posted a 2007 recording of Werner as she talked about the program and the effects it had on the students when they returned to the school to create their own pieces.

"I have found that the visually impaired have a distinct perspective that is unique to them, and, in turn, their works will give a new way of looking at art through the . . . pleasure of all communities," she said.