Trial begins for Emanuel Lopes, accused of killing Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna, bystander Vera Adams
DEDHAM - The trial for Emanuel Lopes, the man accused of killing Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna and an innocent bystander, began Thursday.
Chesna's widow was in the courtroom surrounded by family as opening statements were presented at Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham.
Lopes, 24, faces 11 charges, including two counts of murder in the horrific attack nearly five years ago. He faces two life sentences if found guilty. He was brought into court Thursday in handcuffs as the trial started and showed no emotion in court.
Police said Lopes was involved in a minor car crash near South Shore Hospital on July 15, 2018 and fled the scene. Chesna later found him throwing rocks at a home in Weymouth and confronted him. That's when prosecutors said Lopes used two hands over his head to throw a rock the size of half a basketball at Chesna, who then fell to the ground.
Lopes then took the officer's gun and repeatedly shot him, investigators said.
"Mr. Lopes then took the gun that he had taken from the ground next to Sgt. Chesna, stood over Sgt. Chesna's body and fired it eight times into his head and into his chest," said Greg Connor, Assistant District Attorney for Norfolk County.
Another officer who had arrived at the scene shot Lopes in the leg. Lopes then ran off and fired shots into a nearby home, intentionally killing 77-year-old Vera Adams, police said, before he was arrested.
During his opening statement, Lopes's defense attorney Larry Tipton said his client was mentally ill and exhibited erratic and aggressive behavior. He had also been hospitalized several times, claimed he heard voices telling him to harm himself and had been diagnosed with "cannabis use disorder" from smoking marijuana.
Tipton said the Weymouth police officers who arrested Lopes are heroes but asked the jury to consider his state of mind.
"All I ask that you do is don't ignore their heroic efforts but ask yourself as jurors in this case - the heroes that they are tell you nothing about Mr. Lopes," said Tipton. "They tell you nothing about his mental illness. They tell you nothing about the voices in his head."
On the day Chesna and Adams were killed, Tipton said Lopes was going through a psychotic break triggered by an argument with his girlfriend days before.
Lopes had a history with Weymouth Police. He was out on bail and on pre-trial probation at the time of the shootings, and even though he didn't show up for a court-ordered drug test in February 2018 and failed a drug test that April, his bail wasn't revoked and he was allowed to stay on the street.