Commonwealth v. Silva

**275On October 15, 2013, sixty-nine year old Joyce Howland was found dead in her home. After a seven-day trial, a Superior Court jury convicted the defendant of armed robbery and murder in the first degree in her death, on theories of extreme atrocity or cruelty and felony-murder. At trial, the Commonwealth **276argued that the defendant had robbed the victim of her jewelry, slit her throat, and sold the jewelry to obtain money for drugs. The jury heard testimony from the defendant's coworker, over the defendant's objection, that the defendant previously had said that if he were to break…