In what looks to be like a drug deal gone sideways, one man from Brighton has been arrested for the armed robbery and murder of a Stoneham man on Ferry Street Sunday afternoon.
Police located the Brighton man by using the signals from a GPS bracelet he was wearing as a condition of bail from an unrelated, open case in Middlesex Superior Court.
On Monday Nov. 7, Everett Chief of Police Steven A. Mazzie announced the arrest of a suspect in the murder and armed robbery of a 21-year-old male victim on Ferry Street. The victim, Gary Duff-Turcotte, 21, of Stoneham, was transported to the CHA Everett Hospital where he was pronounced deceased. The shooting incident occurred on Ferry Street on Sunday, Nov. 6, around 2 p.m.
Ferry Street was blocked off most of the afternoon and evening on Sunday as police gathered evidence and prosecutors secured the scene.
On Monday, Keith Lashon Herring, 27, of Brighton, was arrested early in the morning on a warrant charging him with Murder, Armed Robbery, Carjacking and Unlawful Possession of a Firearm.
According to District Attorney Marion Ryan’s office, on Sunday, the defendant allegedly had arranged to meet the victim on Ferry Street to purchase marijuana. Prior to the meeting, the victim expressed apprehension about meeting with the defendant, including texting his fiancé earlier that day that he planned to do a drug deal that afternoon, but that he feared he would be robbed. After the defendant entered the car and sat in the back seat, he allegedly assaulted the victim, as another unknown man wearing a ski mask approached the driver’s side door. After the victim was shot, the female occupant and the victim were able to get out of the vehicle and the defendant got into the driver’s seat and drove away in the victim’s car.
The preliminary investigation suggests that the defendant was allegedly attempting to rob the victim and used the car to flee. When the victim refused to exit the vehicle, Herring allegedly shot the victim in the chest. The victim then got out of the car and ran until collapsing as a result of the gunshot wound. The other male fled the scene in another vehicle.
Over the course of the investigation into the incident and through witness descriptions investigators were able to identify the defendant as the likely shooter. Investigators were ultimately able to determine the defendant’s location by using the GPS coordinates of the bracelet he was wearing as a bail condition of a current open case out of Middlesex Superior Court.
“We’d like the residents in the neighborhood to know that this was an isolated incident and that there is no threat to the neighborhood,” Chief Mazzie said. “I applaud the efforts of the officers involved in this case from both the Everett PD and the Mass State Police who helped identify and arrest a suspect in a timely manner without further harm to the public.”
Herring was arraigned in Malden District Court on Monday, Nov. 7.
Judge William Fitzpatrick revoked the defendant’s bail on an open case out of Middlesex Superior Court. The defendant was ordered held without bail on the murder case.
The next court date is Tuesday, Nov. 29.