Trial opens in Dorchester killing
Woman was caught in crossfire at party
Elizabeth Koch fought back tears as she described the last time she saw her younger cousin inside a Boston nightclub nearly two years ago.
"We were dancing," Koch said of 22-year-old Chiara Levin. "Having a good time."
Koch left early that night, she recalled, leaving her cousin at the Theater District nightclub with two college friends. The cousins would see each other again, they thought - the next day, to celebrate their aunt's 90th birthday.
But Levin never made it to the family party.
Koch testified yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court where 22-year-old Casimiro Barros is on trial for allegedly firing the errant bullet that struck Levin in the head that night, when she found herself in the middle of a gunfight on a Dorchester street.
"She was a beautiful young woman full of life . . . by dawn she was dead," Edmund Zabin, chief homicide pros ecutor for Suffolk County, said during his opening statement yesterday. "She was caught in crossfire, in a feud, between two men she had no stake in."
Zabin blamed Barros, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and three other charges.
Zabin said Levin came to Boston that weekend from New York City, where she moved after college, to visit friends and attend the birthday party. After leaving the nightclub at closing, he said, Levin and her two college friends decided to go to an after-hours party on Geneva Avenue with three men, including 33-year-old Manuel "Spank" Andrade of Dorchester, riding to the neighborhood in a Cadillac Escalade driven by Andrade's cousin.
The house party hosted by a Cape Verdean couple was pleasant, Zabin said, until Andrade picked a fight with Barros and his friends from Roxbury. Andrade allegedly shot one of Barros's friends, Jason Barbosa, in the shoulder, pointed his .380-caliber gun at Barros, and then calmly walked outside to the waiting Escalade. Levin, who had been at the party for about an hour, was sitting in the sport utility vehicle with her friends and Andrade's cousin.
Others ran for cover, Zabin said, but Barros followed Andrade outside. Zabin said that it is not known who fired first, but that Andrade fired at least one shot in Barros's direction and Barros replied by firing five rounds from a 9mm handgun toward the Cadillac.
One bullet hit Levin in the head. Andrade's cousin drove the Escalade away from the gunfire, stopped to let Andrade and another man out of the SUV, and then went to Boston Medical Center.
Levin was rushed into the emergency room, where, a police officer testified yesterday, a nurse called Levin's mother, Grazia, in Kentucky. The nurse, who said that hearing is often the last sense a dying person loses, held the phone close so Levin's mother could speak with her daughter, Officer Ronnie Fabiano testified.
Levin's father, William, issued a statement yesterday saying the family would attend the trial, but would reserve comment until after the verdict.
"It has been almost 18 months since our precious Chiara's life was brutally and tragically ended. I can assure you that all of us in the family are as hurt now as we were then. There is a void that will never be filled," he said.
Barbosa, the other shooting victim, was treated for wounds that were not life-threatening across the hall from Levin, according to witnesses.
Barros's lawyer, Christopher Belezos, called Levin's death a tragedy for her family and for Boston.
"It's a stain on our city," he said in Suffolk Superior Court yesterday. "That should never have happened."
In his opening statement, Belezos told jurors that dozens of people will testify during the trial, but only one of them will implicate Barros as the shooter. But others, including Barbosa, had reason to shoot, he said.
"Who was outside and who was shooting back at Manuel Andrade?" Belezos said.
The trial before Judge Christine McEvoy resumes today.
Andrade has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and will be tried separately.
John Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com. 