Accounts of cab driver's slaying differ as trial opens

By Maria Cramer, Globe Staff

The call for a fare came as the cab driver was about to finish his shift just after 1 a.m. on a warm August night in 2005. Heureur Previlon, 31, picked up two young men in Brighton's Cleveland Circle, but they never reached their destination at the Fidelis Way housing development.

The young men allegedly tried to rob Previlon. When he fought back, 19-year-old Cleveland Martin plunged a kitchen knife into his side, said Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan.

"Within minutes, Heureur Previlon bled to death," Haggan said in his opening statement today to a Suffolk Superior Court jury. "He died a cruel and atrocious death."

Martin, now 22, watched quietly as Haggan called him a murderer in a forceful voice. Martin and his friend, Jashawn Robinson, 21, have been charged with the slaying of Previlon, a musician who could speak four languages and was studying to become a minister.

After the stabbing near St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, the two young men ran toward the housing development where Martin's 16-year-old girlfriend lived, Haggan said. Previlon's cab rolled into a light pole in the parking lot of the hospital. A hospital employee found him just before 6 a.m., slumped over the driver's seat. He had been dead for hours.

Martin's lawyer, Randy Gioia, said during his opening statement that his client had no intention of robbing Previlon and only wanted a ride to his girlfriend's house. Robinson was the killer, Gioia said.

"Jashawn Robinson acted alone and Jashawn Robinson alone is guilty of killing Mr. Previlon," Gioia said.

More than a half-dozen of Martin's relatives, including his brother and sister, sat in the courtroom just feet away from three of Previlon's family members.

Previlon's uncle, Wilbert Previlon took the stand after opening statements. He sobbed quietly when a hospital security officer testified about finding the cab driver's body in his blue and white car.

As the trial broke for lunch, several Boston Police officers stood near the doors outside the courtroom, prepared to break up any fight that might break out. But relatives on both sides stayed calm. Martin's family patiently waited for an elevator in the hallway and insisted the young man was innocent.

"He's a good kid," said Martin's 33-year-old sister, who asked that her name be withheld. "He wants to go to college. He wants to finish his GED."

A woman who identified herself as a relative of Previlon's said the family continues to grieve.

"They're criminals," she said of Previlon's killers. "They're the devils."

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