SJC UPHOLDS CONVICTIONS IN 1991 EASTER MURDERS March 14, 2008 The state’s highest court today upheld the convictions of two men convicted a decade ago of a gang-related Easter Sunday double murder in Roxbury, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced. CRAIG HOLLIDAY and JEFFREY MOOLTREY, 21 and 23 at the time of the March 31, 1991, incident, were both convicted of two counts each of first-degree murder and armed home invasion. The convictions followed their 1998 trial for the shooting deaths of 24-year-old Nathaniel Rivers and 21-year-old Mia Sanders at a late-night house party on Fayson Street. The defendants in 2003 moved for new trials that were denied today in a 15-page decision authored by Justice Robert J. Cordy. Conley, whose Appellate Division fought the appeal, hailed the decision. “Our duty is not just to seek justice in a courtroom, but to do so in a way that stands the test of time and the scrutiny of appeal,” he said. “This was a difficult case from the start, but this decision proves that it was prosecuted ethically and appropriately.” Evidence introduced at trial proved that Holliday and Mooltrey were members of the Big Head Boys gang – sworn rivals of the Intervale Street Posse, which both men believed had shot and killed Holliday’s older brother, Todd, a week before Rivers and Sanders were killed. Prosecutors introduced testimony that Holliday had sworn to take “an eye for an eye” for his relative’s death. Witnesses testified that they had seen both defendants firing handguns in the crowded basement party, and Mooltrey was later arrested in another residence with one of the murder weapons. Each defendant was sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Both defendants sought new trials in 2003, claiming that a protective order on certain witness information hindered their respective defenses; that their trial attorneys were ineffective; that certain witness testimony should not have been admitted; and that the cumulative effect of these issues mandated new proceedings. The SJC disagreed. The defendants argued that a protective order restricting their access to witnesses’ addresses compromised their ability to prepare a defense. The order granted both men’s attorneys and investigators access to the witnesses, but barred it from the defendants themselves because of concerns that the witnesses would themselves be killed or scared away from testifying. The SJC affirmed the order’s propriety, noting that “the Commonwealth’s representations that the crimes were the result of a murderous feud between gangs still operating in the neighborhood where the witnesses lived were reliable” and that incarcerated witnesses were justifiably fearful that their statements would be circulated “in the prisons, making them the potential targets of violence.” The defendants also argued that their trial attorneys were ineffective for failing to pursue third-party culprit defenses, in response to which the SJC noted that “A defendant must do more than raise a speculative theory that further investigation might have identified someone else as one of the shooters.” The defendants further claimed that testimony regarding witnesses’ fears of retaliation, testimony regarding another gang-related shooting, and testimony by the victims’ mothers should not have been introduced. The high court noted that all such testimony was properly introduced and subject to cross-examination by defense counsel: witnesses who testified about their fear of retaliation did so only after the defense sought to discredit their testimony by drawing attention to their inconsistent statements early in the investigation or their delay in speaking with authorities; Mooltrey was found with the gun that killed Rivers as police were investigating another Intervale-Big Head Boys shooting and “the evidence connected the defendants with the murder weapon”; and “the Commonwealth may properly tell the jury something of the person whose life [has] been lost in order to humanize the proceedings.” Finally, the defendants argued that each of these points taken in the aggregate mandate a reduction in the charges or new round of proceedings. “The trial record is replete with evidence that Holliday and Mooltrey intended to commit and did commit the murders with which they were charged,” Cordy wrote in denying the request, “resulting in the loss of two young lives including that of an innocent bystander.” Return to the Press Releases page.