News

Man with implanted horns gets life for 3 killings

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - A Massachusetts man who has bumps resembling horns implanted in his forehead maintained his innocence before a judge sentenced him Monday to three consecutive life terms in the killings of three men who were kidnapped, shot and dismembered in 2011.

"Let me make this clear, my hand wasn't in this," Caius Veiovis, 34, of Pittsfield, said in a statement he read at his sentencing hearing in Hampden Superior Court.

Veiovis was convicted Friday in the killings of David Glasser, 44; Edward Frampton, 58, and Robert Chadwell, 47, all from Pittsfield. "I'll see you in hell," he told then the jury, which considered his case over six days.

Veiovis was the third co-defendant convicted of first-degree murder. All have been sentenced to the mandatory life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors said Veiovis helped Adam Lee Hall, 37, of Peru, and David Chalue, 47, of North Adams, kidnap and shoot the victims weeks before Glasser was to testify against Hall, a Hells Angels member, in an assault case. The others were killed to eliminate witnesses to Glasser's killing, prosecutors said.

Berkshire District Attorney David Capeless read victim impact statements Monday, including one from Chadwell's daughter Ashleye Hall, who said she and her children were close to her father, and Veiovis has deprived them of their future with him.

Veiovis said in his statement that authorities didn't believe he killed the men and offered him a plea bargain he rejected.

The Springfield Republican reports that Capeless said outside court that he and other investigators never said they thought Veiovis didn't kill the men and plea negotiations were conducted with all the defendants.

Defense lawyer James Reardon Jr. said that he regrets Veiovis' Friday outburst and that his client is not the kind of person portrayed in the media. Reardon said he hopes the verdict will be overturned. He said the evidence was insufficient.

Veiovis has a 666 tattoo between two rows of forehead bumps. A former resident of Augusta, Maine, he legally changed his name from Roy Gutfinski Jr. in 2008 while serving more than seven years in a Maine prison for assault.

0