Commonwealth v. Whitaker

On the evening of August 15, 2006, the victim, Kelsea Owens, was found brutally beaten to death in the yard behind the defendant’s house. A jury in the Superior Court convicted the defendant of murder in the first degree on the theories *410of deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity or cruelty. The defendant filed a motion to reduce the verdict to murder in the second degree under Mass. R. Crim. R 25 (b) (2), 378 Mass. 896 (1979), which was denied by the judge. On appeal, the defendant contends that the judge erred in denying the defendant’s motion for a required finding of not guilty as to…