Man Convicted of 1986 Murders Denied Third Trial

A man who twice was found guilty of murdering two men in Boston’s North End in 1986 will not get a third trial, a judge ruled Thursday.

Louis Costa was convicted along with Frank DiBenedetto in 1988 and again in 1994 of two counts of first-degree murder for the shooting deaths of Frank Chiuchiolo and Joseph Bottari. After denying a motion for a third trial in 2012, Judge Robert Mulligan again denied a motion on Thursday in what the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office called a “sharply worded, 28-page decision.”

“The evidence against these defendants is as strong today as it was in 1986,” Suffolk County DA Daniel F. Conley said in a statement. “No amount of sophistry can detract from the clear and compelling evidence of both defendants’ guilt. The first jury got it right in 1988, the second jury got it right in 1994, and Judge Mulligan got it right in this decision.”

The Supreme Judicial Court overturned both Costa’s and DiBenedetto’s 1988 convictions and both men were re-tried and convicted again in 1994, with Mulligan presiding as a Superior Court judge.

The defendants filed a motion for a new trial in 2005, which Mulligan denied, and a second motion in 2009, which the judge also denied. In 2011, after the defendants appealed that denial, the Supreme Judicial Court remanded the case back to Mulligan for further findings, according to the DA’s office.

“Specifically, Costa claimed that testing in 2004 of ‘very small amounts of human DNA’ found by a serologist on sneakers DiBenedetto was wearing at the time of his arrest several days after the murders did not match the genetic profiles of either murder victim,” according to the DA’s office. “From that testing—and notwithstanding the abundant eyewitness testimony identifying them as taking part in the grisly fatal shootings—the two claimed to have ‘new evidence’ of their innocence.”

DiBenedetto and Costa along with the two murder victims reportedly had connections to the La Cosa Nostra organized crime group, according to an AP article from January 2011.

In his latest decision, Mulligan said the recent evidence presented by the defendants seemed “plainly overstretched” to support their argument that DiBenedetto was not one of the shooters.

“Furthermore, the DNA evidence at best had a collateral effect as to the defendant, given that he was separately identified by eyewitnesses as one of the shooters,” Mulligan wrote.

Eyewitness testimony in the case came from two separate, independent sources, Mulligan said, including a person known to DiBenedetto and a local resident who “watched the crimes unfold from his third-floor apartment overlooking Slye Park, now known as Copp’s Hill Park.”

As judge at that trial, Mulligan listened to the second eyewitness’ testimony firsthand and said the man “seemed fair and impartial, honest and forthright.”

“The substance of his testimony, and his overall credibility, did not diminish on cross-examination, despite considerable efforts by defense counsel,” Mulligan said.