Ravida, 47, wearing a white T-shirt, stood with his back toward the courtroom and held his hands to his face during the 30-minute arraignment. His brother and mother sat expressionless nearby.
On the other side of the aisle, the family of victim Sothany Pen, 22, wept as O’Rourke read witness accounts of what happened at about 5:30 a.m. Sunday near 335 Lee Burbank Highway, also known as Route 1A.
According to a Revere police report, a witness said he first observed Ravida at a Hess gas station just off the highway, purchasing cigarettes with a credit card. Ravida and the witness ended up in the same flow of traffic on the northbound side and the witness noticed Ravida, in a dark-green Ford Explorer, cross over to the left lane and then back to the right lane before swerving left.
At that time, the witness said, he noticed what he believed to be luggage fall off Ravida’s roof, according to the report.
The witness told police he then noticed Pen lying in the street, and he stopped to help her and called 911 while Ravida reversed his direction and headed south on the highway. The witness said he attempted to flag down Ravida, to no avail, according to authorities.
Pen sustained severe head injuries, was not breathing, and had no pulse when police arrived, the report said.
John Merullo, another witness, said in a telephone interview yesterday that he was sitting in his vehicle Sunday in the employee parking lot of Capitol Waste Services, a trash hauling company based in East Boston, when the suspect pulled up next to him at 5:35 a.m. The lot is located on Railroad Avenue.
“I could see fear on his face,’’ Merullo said. “Then he very calmly backed out, like he didn’t want to arise suspicion. But the front of his Explorer had a lot of damage to the front, and it was obvious to me that something serious had just happened.’’
Merullo said he drove a short distance to the scene of the accident and told officers what he saw and mentioned that the lot has a video surveillance camera.
Authorities also went to the gas station and retrieved video surveillance footage there, according to the police report.
