PROSECUTOR DETAILS CASE AGAINST PAIR CHARGED WITH SLASHING WOMAN’S THROAT, SHOOTING HER FRIEND March 20, 2008 A Suffolk County prosecutor today detailed the case against two men charged with slitting a robbery victim’s throat and shooting her friend in the face after their crack-fueled bid to empty the woman’s bank account netted them only $40. “On Feb. 13, 2004, just after 1:00 in the morning, 49-year-old Betsy Tripp was asleep in her bed,” Chief Trial Counsel Patrick M. Haggan told a rapt Superior Court jury in gripping opening statements this morning. “She had no idea of the violence and terror headed her way. She had no idea she would not live to see the sun set.” QUINCY BUTLER, 34 (D.O.B. 3/14/74), of Dorchester and WILLIAM WOOD, 33 (D.O.B. 4/17/74), of Roxbury are on trial for first-degree murder, armed assault with intent to murder, kidnapping, armed home invasion, armed robbery, and related offenses for taking a kitchen knife to Tripp’s throat and shooting a surviving victim in the Monsignor Lydon Way residence they shared. “Two men, fueled by their recent ingestion of crack cocaine, invaded their home with a loaded gun,” Haggan said of the defendants, now wearing suits and eyeglasses as they sat beside their respective attorneys. “They later armed themselves with knives from the kitchen. They were a team – and they were going to get what they wanted.” Haggan told the panel of 16 jurors that Tripp’s friend, then 48, was a handyman who received disability checks from the government. That friend, who knew the girlfriend of one of the defendants, intended to ask Butler and Wood for their help with a job and offered to pay them for their efforts afterwards. Instead, Butler and Wood hatched a plan to rob the man. They pulled a gun on him, demanded his money, and – when that was not enough – forced him to drive them to the apartment he shared with Tripp. Once inside, they allegedly forced both victims onto the floor at gunpoint. “They tied her up. They tied [the surviving victim] up. They said, ‘We want your money,’” Haggan told the jury. “Give us your bank card,” the men allegedly told Tripp. “Give us your PIN number. If the money’s not there, we’ll kill you.” “It was a promise they would keep,” Haggan said. Wood allegedly went to two different bank machines in the Codman Square area and retrieved everything he could from Tripp’s account. It amounted to $40. “When he came back … William Wood took a kitchen knife and sawed her throat as she screamed,” Haggan said. Tripp’s friend “lunged to stop him, and Quincy Butler shot him.” The bullet penetrated the man’s cheekbone, entered his eye, and crushed his nose. He feigned death until the men left, then called Boston Police, who arrived moments later to find him with a bullet lodged in his head and suffering incredible pain. Believing he was about to die, the man described his assailants and the car they had stolen from him, telling first responders the name by which he knew his assailant – “Q” – and the name of his girlfriend. That girlfriend, Haggan said, was threatened with death if she revealed to police that she had seen Butler and Wood destroying the blood-soaked clothes, gloves, and sneakers they wore to her residence after the murder. When that was not enough to guarantee her silence, Haggan said, Butler threatened to kill her children. Despite those threats, the woman eventually came forward and gave statements to Boston Police that corroborated the surviving victim’s statements and surveillance footage captured by cameras at multiple cash machines in the area after the murder. Haggan is second-seated by Assistant District Attorney Carina Canaan of the district attorney’s Appeals Division. Butler is represented by attorney Larry Tipton and Wood by attorney Michael Bourbeau. Judge Patrick Brady is presiding in courtroom 815 of Suffolk Superior Court. Return to the Press Releases page.