Jury Hears Closing Arguments in 2013 Murder of Harvard Security Guard

Closing arguments in the trial of a man charged with the May 2013 murder of a Harvard University security guard were presented on Friday before a jury in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston.

According to the Boston Globe, the defendant, now 29-year-old Boston resident Devone Suber, had pled not guilty to the charge of fatally shooting 35-year-old Maiqi Hernandez and wounding another woman in Hernandez’s Roxbury apartment.

Prosecutor Edmond Zabin, Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney and chief of the District Attorney’s Homicide Unit, stated in the closing arguments after two weeks of testimony that, although hot-tempered, Hernandez, a father of two, had no enemies besides Suber with any motive to kill him.

Prosecutors alleged that Suber and Hernandez had an argument in the Prentiss Street apartment building just after midnight on the day of the shooting. According to the prosecution, Suber left the building, then returned with a gun shortly after midnight on May 3, shooting Hernandez in the chest when he opened the door to his apartment.

Boston police stopped Suber on Annunciation Road about 10 minutes after the shooting, using a physical description provided by Hernandez’s friend Angel Delgado, who witnessed the shooting. Suber was carrying a box of .357-caliber ammunition with five cartridges missing, which, according to prosecutors, could have been used in the murder weapon. Suber claims to have found the ammunition.

Eduardo Masferrer, the defense attorney, questioned the reliability of the prosecution’s key witness, Delgado, who had falsely stated to police that Hernandez had not used alcohol or cocaine on the night of the shooting and whose description of the shooting was partly inconsistent with the testimony of other witnesses. Masferrer also pointed to the fact that no gunshot residue had been found on Suber’s hands and claimed that inconsistencies in Suber’s testimony resulted from a learning disability.

—Staff writer Elizabeth C. Keto can be reached at eketo@college.harvard.edu.