Commonwealth v. Girouard

The victim in this case was brutally stabbed to death in August, 1988. Although the defendant was a suspect in the killing, he was not charged with the victim’s murder until *658December, 1998. Thereafter, a jury in the Superior Court convicted him of murder in the first degree by reason of extreme atrocity or cruelty. In returning their verdict, the jury credited the Commonwealth’s evidence, consisting of the defendant’s incriminating statements, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test results, and other evidence that linked him to the homicide, and they rejected the defendant’s contentions that the…