SJC upholds son's murder conviction

The Supreme Judicial Court yesterday upheld the first-degree murder conviction of George J. Nardi for killing his mother, Dianne Barchard, whose decomposed body was found in the apartment they shared in Bridgewater in December 2002.

The unanimous court rejected Nardi's claim that he lost his constitutional right to confront his accusers because the medical examiner who autopsied his mother's body did not testify at his trial in Plymouth Superior Court.

Instead, prosecutors hired Dr. Edward McDonough, a pathologist from Connecticut, to review the medical records and then appear before the jury that convicted Nardi.

Writing for the court, Justice Robert Cordy said Nardi's right to confrontation was not violated.

"The fact that Dr. McDonough's expert opinion on the cause of Barchard's death was based, in large part, on findings made during the course of an autopsy that he did not perform does not infringe on Nardi's right to confrontation concerning this issue," Cordy wrote.

Nardi testified that his mother died of natural causes and that he left her body in the apartment for two weeks because he panicked.

Plymouth County prosecutors contended, however, that Nardi, who was often jobless and spent most of his money on root beer schnapps, was upset that his mother was moving into housing for the elderly, leaving him with no place to live.

The SJC also said it would not reduce Nardi's first-degree murder conviction, which means Nardi will remain behind bars for life without the possibility of parole.

"We conclude that the evidence supported Nardi's conviction of murder in the first degree, by reason of deliberate premeditation, and that there is no basis on which to reduce that verdict or order a new trial," Cordy wrote.