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Accused killer of Jamaica Plain store clerk dumped murder weapon at Revere Beach

E-mail|Link March 3, 2010 12:09 PM

By Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff

The man accused of gunning down a store clerk in Jamaica Plain in December tried to dispose of the weapon at Revere Beach, but police detectives were able to find the gun and matched it to the one that killed the clerk, a prosecutor said today.

Surendra Dangol (Handout photo)

Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan said in court today that 62-year-old Edward Corliss discarded a .38-caliber gun near a rocky area at Revere Beach on Dec. 27, the day after he shot the store clerk at the Tedeschi Food Shop on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain.

The clerk, 39-year-old Surendra Dangol, was shot once in the chest and died.

A relative of Corliss, the same person who drove him to the robbery and then to Revere Beach, told police that Corliss dumped a backpack used in the robbery into a trash can, then walked to the beach. Corliss told the relative he had discarded the weapon, the relative told police.

In January, detectives searched the area during low tide and saw the semi-automatic handgun protruding from the sand.

"A comparison analysis between a test fired bullet from that gun to the bullet removed from the chest of Mr. Dangol resulted in a match as the murder weapon," Haggan said in court.

The prosecutor had detailed the case against Corliss during his arraignment in Suffolk Superior Court. Corliss, a career criminal who had been out on parole for the 1971 killing of a store clerk when the December shooting occurred, pleaded not guilty. He was ordered held without bail.

Dangol was a native of Nepal. His wife and daughter traveled to the United States to participate in his funeral services.