Prosecutor: Jealous husband behind murder-for-hire scheme in Newton

June 5, 2008 02:42 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

By Franci Richardson, Globe Correspondent

WOBURN -- The tension of a simmering love triangle boiled over into murder because James Brescia was an "obsessively jealous" husband who paid someone to kill the man his estranged wife was dating, prosecutors said today during opening statements at Brescia’s trial.

James Brescia

Prosecutors allege that Brescia paid Scott Foxworth, a Dracut man who had just gotten out of jail, to kill his wife’s high school sweetheart. Edward Schiller, 39, was found with a fatal gunshot wound in his head Jan. 13, 2006, in a parking lot next to the Aronson Insurance Agency where he worked in Newton. Brescia, 48, of Waltham is facing charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to kill.

Prosecutor Adrienne Lynch said the scheme evolved from a plan of merely "beating up Edward Schiller to send him a message to stay away into a conspiracy to kill Edward Schiller in order to eliminate him altogether."

Lynch said her investigators have pieced together a portrait of the jealous husband who could not let his wife go, even after she filed for divorce in 2005. Prosecutors will try to build their case with cell phone records that show calls between Foxworth and Brescia; bank records; and testimony from witnesses, including Nancy Campbell, one of the defendant's former co-workers who will tell the jury that Brescia told her of the plan to harm Schiller.

Defense attorney J.W. Carney disputed the prosecution's account, saying that their theories are not supported by evidence. Carney said police badgered Campbell until the single mother promised to testify against Brescia.

"They came back like a hammer looking for a nail," said Carney, adding that Campbell’s story evolved as police applied pressure. "At one point, there was mention that she could be arrested and be sentenced to life in prison."

Edward Schiller

Brescia and his wife had three children together and their relationship followed the natural ebb and flow of marriage, which included some rocky patches, Carney said. Brescia's former wife had told him she rekindled a relationship with Schiller, her high school sweetheart.

But the couple had made progress, Carney said. In the two weeks before the slaying, Brescia was back at home, and the couple had been intimate, sleeping in the same bed.

"Does that sound like someone fixated on another man?" Carney asked. "We're left with clues and a theory and evidence that show James Brescia is an innocent man.”

Carney reminded the jury of eight men and eight women, including four alternate jurors, that they cannot convict his client if they have reasonable doubt that Brescia committed the murder.