No one should have survived. The shooters fired deliberately then fled, leaving all five victims, including a 2-year-old boy, to die on a Mattapan street.
But one victim lived.
Marcus Hurd, 32, a handyman who had gone to the neighborhood that night to buy marijuana, was shot in the back of the head. For nearly six months, he lay in a hospital bed, guarded by police officers 24 hours a day. Three times doctors and nurses had to revive him.
“He’s strong,’’ his mother said last week. “He’s a blessed man.’’
The trial of the two men accused in the September 2010 shootings - a cold execution that outraged the city and shocked even a community accustomed to violence - is scheduled to begin today.
Hurd is expected to testify.
“He’s got to do what he’s got to do,’’ said his mother, who asked that her name be withheld. “It’s going to be rough.’’
Aside from reigniting the anger and pain of the victims’ families, the trial will probably underscore some of the longstanding challenges prosecutors face in cases like these: frightened witnesses, an apparent lack of strong physical evidence, and potentially crucial testimony from a career criminal who has agreed to a plea deal and whose credibility will no doubt be attacked by the defense. The defendants, Dwayne Moore and Edward Washington, have pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors say the men came looking for cash and drugs at the Sutton Street home of a drug dealer but ended up shooting everyone there, even Amanihotep Smith, 2, who was found cradled in the arms of his mother, Eyanna Flonory, 21, who also was shot and killed.
Hurd is now a quadriplegic, able to move only his head and enough of his arms so that he can operate the knob of his mechanized wheelchair, according to court records. He did not respond to a request for an interview made through his mother. For nearly a year, he has been sequestered in an apartment far from Boston and from his family, through the state’s witness protection program. His mother, who still fears for her family’s safety, said Hurd’s condition has left him despondent. At 6 feet 2, Hurd was once athletic and lean, a basketball player who lifted weights.
The shooters “didn’t take him away,’’ his mother said. “But with his being depressed, it can eat you away, too.’’
Washington and Moore are accused of committing armed robbery at 23 Sutton St. in Mattapan, the home of Simba Martin, 21.
Kimani Washington, Edward Washington’s cousin, told police he went with the two men that night to commit the robbery, and that he had forced Martin and Hurd to undress - police found them naked. But he said that he left the scene, taking Hurd’s rented sport utility vehicle, before the shooting happened.
