Aran Islander Ciaran Conneely who was murdered in Boston in 2011 was shot dead by a 16-year-old in a botched robbery attempt, prosecutors say, and left to die just a few steps from the sanctity of his Dorchester home, a trial in Boston heard last week.
Then, authorities say, one of the men who found his lifeless body an hour later stole $10 from his bloodied shirt pocket to pay a cab driver.
The teen accused of his cold-blooded murder, John Graham, now 19, went to trial last week and listened as prosecutor Ian Polumbaum detailed the senseless killing on October 10, 2011.
On his last day alive, Mr Conneely, 36, a construction worker had been celebrating at Dorchester’s Irish festival.
“He was somebody who worked hard and steadily,” the prosecutor said, adding that when Conneely wasn’t working, “He liked to drink.”
Mr Conneely’s last stop was at the old Dorchester Post. He headed home, the prosecutor said, but never made it. Graham, he said, pumped a bullet into Conneely’s chest.
“He ended up shot once in the chest. The bullet killed him. And he wasn’t found for close to an hour,” said Polumbaum.
And just three weeks after he killed Conneely, the same teen shot two other men — who survived — when he tried to rob them, too, authorities said.
But it appears Graham’s indiscretion was his undoing.
“So what eventually connected John Graham to this homicide?” the prosecutor said. “For one thing, he couldn’t stop talking about it.”
Graham was bouncing between homes and bragging to those he was staying with about the slaying, boasting, “I got a body. I got a body.” Which means, the prosecutor said, “I killed somebody.”
The teen said when he went to rob Mr Conneely, he started counting down from five, and when Conneely began backing away, he shot him, the prosecutor said. Mr Conneely’s devastated sister held her head in her hand during the heart-wrenching testimony.
A cab driver testified that he spotted Mr Conneely’s body on Nahant Avenue and how one of his two passengers tried to pay for the ride with a bloodsoaked $10 he swiped from Mr Conneely’s pocket.
One of the passengers, Boston firefighter Mark Folan, was returning to his home next door to Conneely from the Irish festival. Folan checked Conneely’s pulse and called 911. The firefighter said his pal took the money but put it back when Folan told him Mr Conneely was dead.
