Commonwealth v. Batista

On January 25, 1999, a man wearing a knit hat entered the Haverhill Jewelry and Pawn store on River Street in Haverhill and immediately pulled a gun from inside his coat. Speaking in Spanish, he told the store’s owners, Felicita Roman and Jorge Delgado, “This is a holdup.” He ordered Roman and Delgado to fill a bag with jewelry. As he was leaving the shop, the man spied some trays of necklaces. The trays could not fit in the bag, so the man left the store carrying both the bag and the trays in his hands. He ran across the street to a waiting white Hyundai Elantra automobile and entered the…