Trial opens in case of little girl killed in gang shootout

By Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff

Prosecutors say Trina Persad's plan on a summer evening in 2002 was simple: to go to nearby Jermaine Goffigan Park in Roxbury and spend a summer afternoon frolicking with her siblings under the watchful eye of their aunt. Joseph Cousin's plan was to get payback against gang rivals who were playing basketball at the park.

A family photo of Trina Persad

The 10-year-old girl was caught in the middle of that rivalry, standing between Cousin, as he leveled a sawed-off shotgun from the back seat of a stolen car, and his intended targets.

"The blast sent high-velocity pellets into the girl's face, skull and her brain,'' Josh Wall, a Suffolk County prosecutor, said during his hourlong opening statement in Suffolk Superior Court. "The results were immediate, the results were deadly."

Cousin's attorney, William White, used his opening statement to tell the 9-woman, 5-man jury that Cousin's whereabouts on the evening of June 29, 2002, can be accounted for and didn't include being at Goffigan Park.

Cousin's trial on a first-degree murder charge follows a mistrial in 2004, which was declared when several jurors were dismissed and there were not enough alternates to replace them, prosecutors said. This trial is expected to last about three weeks.