SJC: Brockton man is guilty of murdering girlfriend

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

A Brockton man was properly convicted of murder for the brutal killing of his girlfriend, whose body was found hidden in a storage space in her Brockton apartment building some two weeks after she disappeared in 2001, the state’s high court said today.

The Supreme Judicial Court unanimously upheld the first degree murder conviction of Darrell Sharpe for the beating death of Vincetta Myers, a former Roxbury woman who obtained four restraining orders against Sharpe before he ended her life with the claw of a hammer around Jan. 4, 2001. Her body was found Jan. 19, 2001.

On appeal, Sharpe’s attorney argued that the jury should not have learned that Myers had obtained four restraining orders against him — none was in effect at the time of her death — and that two other women also got restraining orders against. Sharpe.

Sharpe took the stand in his own defense in Plymouth Superior Court where he admitted hitting Myers with the hammer but only after she attacked him repeatedly as they argued over money. His appeal lawyer said the conviction should be reversed because Sharpe’s trial lawyer made a major mistake by letting Sharpe testify in his own defense, which is rare in murder trials.

Writing for the court, Justice Francis X. Spina said Sharpe should stay in prison where he is serving life sentence without the possibility of parole.

“The case against the defendant was overwhelming, and the only realistic chance the defendant had to obtain a verdict of less than murder in the first degree was to take the stand and testify as he did,’’ Spina wrote. “We have reviewed the entire record… and see no reason to reduce the degree of guilt or grant a new trial.’’