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After fourth trial, jury convicts 2 men of murder

E-mail|Link|Comments () June 11, 2009 04:54 PM

By David Abel and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

The fourth jury to hear evidence in the brutal torture and killing of Betsy Tripp finally rendered a verdict this afternoon, finding two men guilty of murder and other charges in Suffolk Superior Court.

The 35-year-old defendants -- Quincy Butler and William Wood -- had repeatedly escaped verdicts on the same charges since 2008 because of three mistrials, twice because of deadlocked juries and once because the judge got sick.

Today, the jury convicted Wood, of first-degree murder for cutting Tripp's throat. Butler was convicted of second-degree murder for participating in a crime that led to Tripp's death.

"I have nothing but relief," Christopher Gorton, Tripp's brother-in-law, said after the verdict. "But it's not like there's even some sense of victory after five years."

Asked about the second-degree murder conviction for Butler, Gorton shrugged off the question.

"It doesn't matter," Gorton said. "They are both gone."

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley shook hands with Tripp's relatives and praised a "remarkable job" by Assistant District Attorney Patrick M. Haggan, who prosecuted the case.

"This was excruciating for them to go through four times," Conley said of the relatives. "It was really difficult for them. There is always the emptiness after a verdict like this because nothing the jury did will bring back Betsy Tripp."

The defendants' lawyers left the courtroom without comment.

Butler was also convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for shooting Tripp's boyfriend, Morris Thompson, who survived but was left partially blind. The jury also found both men guilty of several other charges, including kidnapping and armed home invasion.

Prosecutors alleged that Butler and Wood held Thompson, 47, at gunpoint on the night of Feb. 12, 2004, and forced him to drive to the Dorchester apartment he shared with Tripp, 49. Wood used Tripp's ATM card to withdraw $40, prosecutors said, and then he attacked Tripp and shot Thompson, who pretended to be dead.

On Wednesday, jurors sent a note to the judge asking whether they could convict one defendant of first-degree murder and the other of second-degree murder. They are accused of committing the crime together, and both had been charged with first-degree murder, that is, with intentional, premeditated killing.

The judge told the jurors that, indeed, the men could be convicted of different degrees of murder.