Conte defends role in probe
Rebukes police on autopsy issue
Worcester District Attorney John J. Conte, delivering an unusually harsh rebuke to a fellow law enforcement officer, said yesterday that the Northborough police chief has had toxicology results for weeks in a high-profile car crash that killed two teenage girls last October.
Rejecting suggestions that he helped stifle a criminal investigation, Conte insisted that Northborough police did not need his approval to pursue charges against a host of the party where the girls were drinking before the crash.
However, Conte said the charge would be a ''stretch" because investigators learned that the teenagers brought their own alcohol there. ''You could stretch it," Conte said, ''but that's like picking out a scapegoat for this horrendous tragedy and that's not what happened here. The girls brought their own liquor."
Conte's involvement in the case became a focal point this week after Attorney General Thomas Reilly acknowledged that he had urged Conte not to share the teenagers' autopsy reports with the public. The girls' father is a friend of Reilly and contributed $300 to his political campaign.
In addition, Northborough police Chief Mark Leahy told the Associated Press this week that Conte's office refused to share a copy of the autopsy report with police and also suggested that Conte was hindering the investigation.
Leahy wanted the report to establish whether the girls had been drinking, to build a case that someone had illegally furnished alcohol to the underage teens.
But in an interview with the Globe last night, Conte vehemently denied that Leahy ever called him to ask for the autopsy reports.
''The implications the chief or the AP reporter is making is absolutely atrocious because none of it is true," Conte said. ''There's something going on here and that's a lack of understanding of how things are done. This investigation was done locally."
Northborough police could have charged the host of the party with furnishing alcohol -- without the approval of Conte's office -- because it is a misdemeanor.
Shauna Murphy, 17, and her sister Meghan, 15, died in the Oct. 13 crash. According to police reports, Shauna, who was driving, appeared to be intoxicated, before she got behind the wheel.
The third person in the car, Melissa Smith, was seriously injured. The police report said Shauna Murphy arrived at the party with vodka.
Yesterday, Conte said that Northborough police told him on Nov. 2 that they were already in possession of the girls' toxicology results, which they had collected over the telephone from the medical examiner's office. The results are part of a broader autopsy report.
''They didn't need any autopsy reports," he said. ''They already had the readings."
Leahy, contacted by a Globe reporter at his home yesterday, refused to comment. He wrote in a police report released this week that he wanted to pursue a case based on ''allowing a minor to consume alcohol," but that he closed the case after Conte said there was insufficient evidence for a criminal case.
Conte, who rarely speaks to the press, sought out several reporters yesterday to dispute Leahy's account of the investigation.
''To imply that I have some information that hinders investigations is absolutely ridiculous," Conte said. ''They did the investigation, not me."
Conte also went into greater depth yesterday in explaining his disagreement with Leahy over charges under the state's ''social host" law.
Police reports indicate that Nathaniel Berberian, a 20-year-old resident of Northborough, hosted a party where Shauna Murphy and others drank alcohol.
Although several witnesses said Berberian did not supply alcohol, the police reports said that he appeared to be ''in control of the house" and ''allowed underaged persons to drink."
Conte said yesterday that it was questionable who was ''in control" of the house since Berberian came home to find two friends already there watching a baseball playoff game.
''People were there even before he got home," said Conte. ''That doesn't show much control."
Reilly, who is running for governor, said he called Conte because he wanted to protect the Murphy family from further pain. On Thursday, Governor Mitt Romney alleged that Reilly had tried to ''hush up" the investigation.
David Guarino, spokesman for the attorney general, said that Conte's comments yesterday support what his office has been saying all along -- that Reilly's actions were entirely proper.
''It just says to us anyone who ever suggested that the attorney general's role in this was anything less than proper just had their facts wrong. For anyone to suggest otherwise, they've been wrong and they continue to be wrong and they know it," said Guarino.
Crossing party lines in the political battle, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said yesterday that he saw nothing wrong with Reilly's call.
''If the facts are that all that was done was to indicate that it was unnecessary to provide the media a copy of an autopsy report in a tragic case like this, I think that's entirely appropriate," said O'Keefe, a Republican.
Frank Phillips of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 